Silent Hill: A Redefinition
by The Sickness
Summary: Ex-Marine Arelia Mitchel never thought she'd see anything more horrific than mankind at its worst: the atrocities of war. Silent Hill has, on more than one acount, proven her wrong... Chapter 24 is now up.
1. Arrival

Twin tidal waves rolled out from under the tires of Arelia Mitchel's Ford pickup truck as it bobbed its way through the puddle-littered cobblestone back road en route to the Silent Hill resort town. The torrential downpour of the previous evening still remained in the gutters and dips, spraying up water like gossamer wings on either side of the truck. Inside, Arelia turned up the FM radio station and nodded her head to the familiar beat emanating from the speakers. It was a song she'd heard long ago, but couldn't quite place. She thought about it briefly before taking a quick, shallow inhale of her cigarette. As she exhaled, she began to hear only the bass beat, and paid no mind to the rest.

A pot hole jarred the truck. Arelia leaned back in her seat and put one foot up on the dashboard, combat boot gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the windshield. It was a nice day for potholes, she thought. Her other boot leaned its weight on the accelerator and pushed the automobile forward through the wooded countryside. As she glanced at the mud surrounding the road, she briefly recalled the mudslide that had closed main roads to Silent Hill. She then decided she did not mind the solitude of the secondary path. Just the amount of time it consumed.

She looked at the clock. 5:45 PM. _Damn!_

Arelia had hoped to reach the resort before dark, but with miles to go, that had been rendered an impossibility. Her eyes scanned the area for state police. Then she floored it.

At 9:12 PM, the black truck roared its way through the final road to its destination. Its passenger turned off the radio when it began picking up only static. The lack of music was eerie in the dark, Arelia thought. She was glad she turned it off, however, when a police motorcycle approached her bumper, close enough to be tailgating. She looked in the rearview mirror, then the side mirrors as the bike pulled around to her left and caught up with the driver's side door. _What is he doing?_ she wondered privately.

The male police officer glanced at her, eyes concealed by the visor of his helmet. He flashed her a radiant, charming grin under his mustache and seemed to wink, though Arelia couldn't be sure. Before she could smile in response, he accelerated and disappeared beyond the curve of the road ahead.

So, a cop was headed toward Silent Hill. Funny, that. For all its hush-hush occult and drug history, the town seemed to have recovered since its final battle with the aforementioned. It was now advertised as a safe, serene, family-oriented getaway from the hustles and bustles of ordinary life. It had been turned into a vacation resort and, as Arelia understood, had picked up quite a profit from it. The remote location and quaint atmosphere had obviously done it some good with producing a desirable image.

The policeman entered her mind again. The ex-marine took her foot off the dashboard and winced at the pins-and-needles sensation that followed. He appeared to be attractive and perhaps nice. She just hoped he hadn't seen the rifle rack in the back of the truck bed. 

But what would a police officer be headed on-call to the town for?

She passed the curve of the road and came out on the other side unharmed. Still there was no sign of the town. _Huh. Must've been a little farther than I expected._ She glanced warily at the guardrail to her right and edged closer to the left, spotting a fleeting glimpse of a rather perplexing situation. The policeman's motorcycle had been ditched on the side of the road, but the man himself was nowhere in sight. The memory of his smile came back to her full force for an instant before she looked back to the road.

_Shit!_

At 9:18 PM, Arelia's truck swerved to avoid a figure stepping out into its high beams, flipped twice, and landed upside down just inside the borders of Silent Hill.


	2. Nightmares and Illusions

She woke up when the pins-and-needles sensation left her leg and was replaced in her head.

She wasn't quite sure of things at first. Shadows and light danced in front of her vision, some blurred familiarities, some abnormalities from the blood rushing to her cranium. She picked up odd noises all around her. Unearthly giggles, like a Thalidomide child's glee at the horrified expression on its new mother's face. The image cleared her vision for her, and the noises abruptly stopped.

Arelia was rightly confused at the scene before her until she realized she was upside down. She reached for the clasp on her seat belt and unhooked it, falling a short distance into the steering wheel. The horn honked loudly until she could kick out the window and roll through into the street.

The first thing that occurred to her was that it was snowing. The pale, cold butterflies fluttered down from the sky, tinting the blonde of her hair with sheer white. It never seemed to pile much or remain, just leave a light blanket on the ground before disappearing. She brushed it off her hair irritably.

The second thing that occurred to her was that it was snowing out of season. In the middle of summer, to be exact. _Weird._

__She looked herself over briefly, patting herself down for injuries. She found nothing. _Arelia, you lucky son of a bitch,_ she thought, the Marine mentality sticking like a love-sick squid to the nodes of her brain. She glanced over the damage of her pickup and sighed remorsefully.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio," Arelia mused. She tried to push over the hulking vehicle, but it would not turn upright. Her mind screamed torrents of obscenities, the worst of which she kept to herself. Eventually, she crawled in the broken window, ever-careful of the shards of glass, and searched around for her pocket flashlight. She groped through the glove compartment, found her Colt .45, two extra ammunition clips (although the gun was fully loaded), and a survival knife. She slipped the knife into her boot and the gun and clips into her pocket for a moment, taking a long second to make certain the safety was on the firearm.

Another grope of the glove compartment turned up her pocket flashlight. Arelia removed it and clipped it to the low collar of her black tank top and glanced absently at the "LOADED WEAPON" print across the middle. She'd need more than a tank top to stay warm if it continued snowing. She retrieved a jacket from the back seat and slipped it on, then crawled out of the capsized truck and sat beside it. As she took out her gun and tossed it carefully from hand to hand, she looked over the town.

It was much as she had expected it to be, save for the dense fog that blanketed the area like the breath of a thousand freezing urchins. There were small houses and two-story houses, some with porches, some with balconies, some with both, and some without either. It reminded Arelia a little of the Italian slums when she had visited two summers ago in early July. Only Silent Hill was cleaner and without the bright colors that were reminiscent of safety cone variations.

Every so often, between a row of three or five houses, there would be a chain-link fence and gate leading to an alley. It was all Arelia could see through the fog, but she recalled what alleys usually led to in Italy. Clotheslines hanging from windows, garments drying without a sense of shame or discretion. The homely, pudgy faces of the old Italian women, their jowls hanging, cheeks folded with lines of age. Creaky voices calling to one another, seeming to be angry, but then crackling into a grainy laughter that spread contagiously throughout the apartments. Arelia recalled how difficult it seemed to speak angrily in such a beautiful language.

The third thing that occurred to her was the lack of people. The town seemed deserted. No one had come when her truck flipped. She had no idea how long she had been there. Well, that wasn't true. She hadn't been hanging long enough to get a nose bleed, so she had awoken pretty quick after being knocked unconscious. But now that she surveyed the area, no one at all seemed to be present. No children playing in the snow. No adults peeking out of windows to see if the driveway needed to be plowed. No one jogging. No one walking. No one.

Under the circumstances, Arelia took the safety off the Colt.

She stood and brushed the snowflakes off her head and out of her ponytail as best she could. The best thing to do, she imagined, was to try and find someone and better ascertain the situation. She checked the pocket of her camouflage pants for the clips before proceeding.

The streets were easy to traverse without traffic or snow build-up. Arelia felt a little silly walking about like a reconnaissance scout, her handgun safety off and held at her side with her finger caressing the trigger guard. She was not certain which direction she walked in, but a fourth and final thing occurred to her: It was daylight. It had been night when she crashed. She stopped thinking about it when a gate creaked to her right. She waited silently as it closed, latched, and silence followed. After a few moments of deliberation, she walked toward it, caressing the trigger guard a little faster.

Arelia unlatched the gate and left it open, following the alley's twists and turns, sloshing through puddles of ankle-deep water. _Must have rained here, too. Or else the snow melted. _She kicked her feet a little as she trudged along.

It got darker and darker the farther she went, until she had to turn on the flashlight. _Dark already? Wasn't it light a few minutes ago?_ It sent a beam in front of her, illuminating the shadows slightly. She found she was sorry it did.

The alley walls were painted crudely with splattered blood, as if a great struggle had occurred every step of the way. For that much blood, it would have to be many victims. The puddles were large amounts of blood filling the small dips in the concrete. A shudder of wrongness crawled up Arelia's spine. This was wrong. This was terribly, terribly wrong.

Sirens in the distance. Her pace quickened as she passed through, her flashlight finding new things to play upon, finding new shadows to chase away like frightened animals, toying with her vision and making her see things that weren't there. She made a sharp turn and nearly slammed into a gurney in the middle of the alley. The creak of the rusty metal made her jump and pull up her gun slightly. _Dammit! _She shoved away the gurney and turned instead to the crucified body on the chain link fence, covered with blood and IVs, stark naked and milky-eyed. The obscenity her mind hurtled at her mouth now was stifled by the stillness of her heart and jaw.

The Marine in Arelia hissed battle instructions at her, but they fell on a shocked muscle system. It was only when something scuffled to her left that she was able to move, a dumb turning motion accompanied by the lack of tension in her trigger finger. Two small, humanoid-esque creatures limped, shuffled, and loped toward her, each holding a short but efficient knife. Their blades gleamed. Their eyes did not. The mutilated faces of the children were twisted like a deranged Picasso attempt that had gone too far for even modern art.

The numb mind of Arelia finally decided that anything coming at her with a weapon was a target. She screamed aloud as she fired round after round into the creatures, frequently missing, bullets ricocheting off the bricks and causing small sparks in the eyes of the demons. She backed up into the gurney and toppled over, cursing herself for panicking in the first place.

As she struggled to get up, she was pushed down by the demons, and stabbed to death in the blackness.


	3. Alone?

_Lights flashed. Sirens, maybe. Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red. Crowds talking on the sidewalk, watching the road, watching a truck. Watching the woman get out of that truck. Blue and red, blue and red. _

_Paramedics and policemen. A stretcher with leather straps. Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red. Someone speaking through a bullhorn. "Nothing to see here, move along, everybody."_

_A dent in the truck's fender. A horrible, awful, small dent. The wheel of a bike still creaking as it continued to spin, the body it was attached to crushed under the left front tire. A mess of pink metal and tassels._

_Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red. No idea what the woman hit, yet, save for the bike. She tried to look over the hood of the truck, irritated at the police officer pushing her back. Couldn't see; pushed back into the screaming blue and red, blue and red, blue and red, blue and red..._

  


Arelia woke up with a start. She looked around a moment before jerking again, and pulled her knees up further to her chest. Her head throbbed. Her body ached. She sat up straighter and ran her hand through her hair. As luck would have it, she had come out of it uninjured. What exactly had she come out of?

The cafe she had been moved to was well-lit and homey, a sudden change from the foggy world outside. The booths were cushioned with ugly brown padded seats, one of which she had been laying on. The tables were of polished, dark wood, set up with gleaming glass spice shakers and plastic condiments. There was a long bar, in front of which were swiveling chairs on support poles, upon which was a police officer.

The memory of the man's smile flashed in Arelia's mind again. It was him.

He stood up and crossed his arms, smiling a little, though less certainly.

"You're up," he observed casually. "How do you feel?" Arelia sat up fully and swung her legs over the seat, boots making a harsh thud against the tile floor.

"Like I've been hit by a truck. But I'm fine," she answered tonelessly. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "How did I get here?"

"I found you in the middle of the road outside. You were unconscious. I brought you in."

"How long have I been out?"

"Not too awful long. I found you this morning, and it's almost noon now." The officer sat on a chair at the bar and swiveled back and forth as he talked. Arelia found it difficult not to be comforted by the familiarity of his uniform. "Can you remember your name?"

"Arelia..." She searched for her last name and found it. "Arelia Mitchel."

"I'm Sergeant Joshua Bishop." His teeth were white and perfect when he smiled. "I'm from Brahms, the town over. You're the first person I've seen here." Bishop took a notepad out of his shirt pocket. "Mind if I ask you a few questions, ma'am?"

"Wait a minute, I'm just a tourist," Arelia said quickly. "I came here for a vacation, but I lost control of my vehicle and... A lot of things just kind of happened at once..."

"Yeah, I remember you now," Bishop said after a few moments of studying her. "In the big black truck on the road here, right?"

"That's right." _The motorcycle ditched on the roadside. _"Did you crash?" The sergeant's eyes hazed over eerily as he tried to remember. One corner of his mouth pulled to the side a bit and his tongue roamed over his upper gums while he thought.

"Yeah, I did," he said finally. 

_Then how did _you_ get here?_

__"I'm... I'm looking for something," she began. "I'm not sure what it is, but I know I lost it, and it's here."

"Well, ma'am, it's like I said: you're the only one I've seen around here. But if it's a missing person, I could call for reinforcements and see if we can find anything." The ex-Marine shook her head.

"That's not necessary. I'm not even sure it's a person," she added. Her head still throbbed. She felt her jacket for a pack of cigarettes, found them, and then decided she wasn't well enough to smoke. "Why are _you_ here, sergeant?"

"We lost contact with Silent Hill... oh, I guess it was a month back, maybe. I was sent in by the Brahms police department to find out why." Bishop leaned back onto the bar and smiled painfully. "Guess I know why, now, huh?"

"Guess so," Arelia said. She stood and adjusted her jacket. "Thanks." She walked to the door.

Bishop jumped off the chair and took her arm. "Where are you going?" His touch was firm and professional, but not without general concern. She shook him off anyway.

"I told you, I'm looking for something. I'm going to go find it."

"Do you have a gun?"

Arelia searched her pockets for the clips and firearm.

"Ummmm... No." Bishop removed his sidearm and loaded it, handing it to her. It was no Colt, but it would do.

"Here," he said. "Takes fifteen rounds. Now listen to me, miss: don't shoot at anything unless you _see _it, and don't go blasting me by mistake. You understand that?"

"I'm an ex-Marine, sergeant," Arelia hissed. "I was trained in all sorts of firearms. Best shooter in the outfit."

"There will be no trouble then, I guess," Bishop answered pleasantly. He ran his hand through his brown and copper hair. "I'm going to go call in to Brahms. See if I can bring up some more officers." He tilted an imaginary hat to her. His eyes smiled beneath glasses, and soon his mouth smiled as well. "Ma'am," he said, "good luck with whatever you're looking for." Then he hopped over the bar and disappeared through the back door of the cafe, leaving Arelia without his warm drawl and company.

She put one hand on the back of her neck and looked around again, sighing. It was still snowing outside; she could see it falling through the large windows fast-food restaurants seemed to be so fond of. There was a pinball machine on the far right side of the counter, and two odd posters on the wall of a man with a shotgun, grinning maniacally, shouting: "STUDY, DAMMIT!" at the reader. Arelia almost smiled. She spotted a bottle and kitchen knife on the counter. Further study of the bottle's label proved it to be medicinal. After looking it over for a moment, she pocketed it. _ Better than nothing,_ she decided. She also pocketed the kitchen knife, sliding it through her belt to keep it from stabbing her.

There was a clip-on flashlight on the counter, but an assessment of herself turned up that Arelia still had hers. She ignored it and instead picked up the area map next to it. She marked the approximate area of her car wreck with a red pen she found behind the counter, then colored in the alley she had gone through. She was going to go through it again and find out what the Hell was going on.

There was a pocket radio on one of the tables. Arelia played with it, switching it on and off, going through all channels and stations, until she was satisfied that all it produced was a low hum.

"Must be broken," she muttered to herself, and pushed the door open to leave. Suddenly the radio came to life, emitting a high-pitched squeal of static. Arelia stared at it. _What the...?_

__Through the window crashed a flying animal of some sort, leathery wings powerful enough to knock over Arelia. She rolled out of its way and stood up, not bothering to directly look at the creature this time. It had almost gotten her killed before. She emptied three rounds into the thing, then it fell and twitched once before the static stopped and the low hum returned.

Glass crunching beneath her feet, Arelia stooped to look at the odd beast that had attacked her. She nudged it with her gun. It was dead and bloodied. In all her years, she had seen nothing like it. It was leathery and pinkish in color, almost resembling a prehistoric dinosaur of the sky. It also looked skinless. Something was not right about the creature. Perhaps the all-too-human legs and torso.

She stood up and looked out of the broken glass at Silent Hill. Calm, misty, remote. Abandoned. Forsaken, perhaps, even by God.


	4. To School

Upon leaving the cafe, Arelia found two boxes of handgun ammunition, each containing thirty rounds. _Bishop must have left them for me,_ she reasoned, stuffing the boxes into her jacket. Directly to her left she saw another restaurant, "Queen Burger". It suddenly occurred to her how hungry she was.

On the window sill, she found another medicine bottle, which she took as well. Another one of the flying demons came at her, and she took it out with four shots; three torso shots while it was in the air, and one head shot while it lay screeching on the ground. The radio she had taken lapsed into another period of droning that she was not certain she could stand much longer.

She could see a convenience store up ahead, but decided she had enough supplies to visit the alley.

Arelia followed the directions on the map, then put it away when landmarks from before became visible. Her memories of the alley were fuzzy, but certain things jumped out at her. The houses. The creaky gate. She walked between the rows of houses to get to the gate, all the while listening for the whine of the radio. She did not have to wait long.

It started out softly, then rose to a great pitch. Arelia held her gun with both hands, so that if one trigger finger failed, she'd have the other. Then she waited. The radio wailed. It was getting closer.

A dog limped out of the mist, seemingly with a lack of interest as to Arelia. It's skinless, malnutritioned body shuffled along, weaving as if rabid, a nasty yellow-white foam eating away at its mouth. Arelia aimed for the neck and took the first shot. A jet of blood pulsed out of the canine's jugular as it began a swift gallop toward her, suddenly aware of her presence.

She shot twice more and took a step back, holding her arm up as the dog leaped a magnificent height. It bit her forearm and retreated, running in a semi-circle to come back around. She fired, missed, and reloaded, then fired again. The dog fell back on its side. It wheezed until she blew its brains out all over the pavement.

_You mangy piece of crap, _Arelia snarled internally as her own blood dripped onto the ground, fizzling as it mixed with the dog's. The radio had not stopped screaming, and she became afraid that she might begin. 

She fired six shots to her right and heard a dog drop. Droning again. Arelia reloaded just in case and found the gate. She spit on the "BEWARE OF DOG" sign and opened it.

She passed through the alley for the second time, seeing much more of it now than she had the first. There was half a mutilated corpse she had overlooked before. She kicked it aside, looking up at the windows as she walked between the wall of the alley. They were shuttered closed. Arelia expected something to jump out of them; something horrible and unreal like the things she had encountered earlier. It was more horrible when nothing did.

There was no blood in the alley now. It looked much as she expected an alley to look. There were various debris littering the ground, but nothing out of the ordinary. She wondered exactly when that expression would change for her. She picked up two boxes of bullets in the debris and did not stop to wonder why they were there.

Near the end of the alley, just before where she had been stabbed to death by the children, she found a problem. Some sort of freak deterioration had occurred. The walls had fallen in on one another and created a third wall of debris. Arelia cursed and kicked a metal pipe at her feet, sending up a flurry of papers. She grabbed one as it fell down and read the writing in red crayon.

  


To School

  


It was child's handwriting.

She looked at her map and circled the school, then sighed to herself and turned back to head out of the alley and into the roads again.

Arelia had always thought she'd end up dying and going to Hell. She had just assumed it would happen in that order.


	5. Dog House

Arelia Mitchel wandered all over town for an hour, only to find that all roads to the school were gone. In their place were ragged ends of pavement leading to deep, dark chasms of fog and depth. She shook her head and sighed upon approaching the last possible road, and could see from ten feet away that it only lead to another dead end. But upon further progression toward it, she found papers again. Most were blank, but two had left another message for her.

  


Dog House

Levin St.

  


She set down the papers and glanced at the area map. Levin Street was not far from her position. Arelia looked down at the swirling, growling mists of the chasm before leaving.

Upon returning to Levin Street, Arelia noticed the abundance of roaming, soulless dogs. She took out only three, not willing to waste the bullets. Finally, on the left side of the street, she came to a house with a doghouse in the front yard. It looked to be for a small dog, maybe a terrier or beagle. The entrance was dark, and she could not see if there were anything in it.

Rather than to reach in her hand blindly and risk it being bitten off, she fired two rounds into it. Not only did it illuminate the small space enough to see that there was nothing inside, it also illuminated a house key that had been hidden in the doghouse for safe keeping. Arelia crouched on the dew-soaked grass and retrieved the key with a small smile. The smile faded as she wondered what was in that house. She glanced up at it and scanned its dim windows. No shadows moved behind them. It looked as if it were all right to proceed.

_Don't just assume it is because you can't see anything,_ her mind warned. _You know better._ Arelia climbed the short flight of steps to the front door and hesitated. Then she knocked to see if anyone would answer. When no one did, she slid the key into the lock, turned it until she heard a snap, and opened the door with her gun drawn.

The house was nice, if small. She hit the light switch on the wall to her right, filling the entryway with bright, warm glows from the fixtures on the walls. It was cleaned well. The kitchen the hallway led to was spotless. Arelia collected the two first-aid kits, medicinal bottle, and two boxes of handgun bullets on the counter, then raided the refrigerator for something to make a sandwich out of. She found slices of turkey and cheese wrapped in ziploc bags from a grocery store. She flipped them over to inspect the dates they were packaged. About a month old. _Damn._ She took out the turkey and did not smell anything too repugnant, and the cheese seemed to be all right.

There was a loaf of bread in one of the cupboards above the counter. Arelia made a dry sandwich and ate it quietly, trying hard not to think about the odd taste. She sighed through her nose and leaned against the counter edge. How long had it been since these people were taken away? When had they eaten their last meal? Arelia glanced at her sandwich and wondered if it would be hers. There had been no trace of anyone ever inhabiting the house. She found it a little sad to think that people could be so easily abducted and forgotten.

Arelia walked through the rooms of the house, chewing and swallowing her sandwich, glancing in rooms for any sign of previous or current life. Bloodstains on the bed sheets of a child's lonely bed. Stuffed animals on the dresser. Cookie Monster staring back at her with dead, plastic eyes. Drapes blowing in the wind of a lazy ceiling fan like a ghostly sigh. No child.

A washing machine came to life behind a locked laundry room door. The lights flickered. It was time to leave.

She tried to leave through the back door. It too was locked. She stuffed the remaining part of the sandwich into her mouth and tried to force it open. It wouldn't budge. She swallowed and tried again. No dice. Arelia took a quick drink from the tap water in the faucet and wiped the back of her mouth with her jacket sleeve. _Should have gotten a napkin. You were raised better'n that._

__Next to the back door, she found a map on the wall. It was of the locations for something called the "Keys for Eclipse". Arelia copied them down onto the residential area map she had just in case. She was opening the front door when she realized she had overlooked the writing on it. It had been opened from the other side before. Now she could see the blood-like ink running fresh down the wood.

  


Derek's in school now

  


Arelia glanced back at the child's room and shuddered before leaving.


	6. The Lion, The Woodman, and The Scarecrow

At the end of Finney Street, located at the far right edge of Silent Hill, there sat a lone wrecked police car. The condition looked recent and the lights had been turned on. _Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red..._

_So, Bishop's backup tried to get here,_ Arelia thought. A quick search of the interior did not turn up a body. _Figures. _She checked the trunk and found a key. _Maybe one of the Keys for Eclipse. _Briefly, Arelia wondered why in the world she would be looking for keys to cause an Eclipse over the already gloomy, demon-infested town.

_Did you have something better in mind?_

__She took the box of bullets next to the key, then the key itself, and closed the trunk. She glanced down the chasm through the mist and thought that she saw the tiniest flicker of blue and red lights. Memories of Bishop tugged at her heart. It was difficult, Arelia found, to be without a friend in such a horrible place.

In the alley between Bachman Road and Ellroy Street, Arelia found a basketball court just beyond a gate. Instead of a ball, she found a severed dog's head lying in a puddle of its own blood a few feet away from the base of the hoop. She wondered if Bishop had killed it before she recognized it as a normal dog, not the demons she had become so accustomed to in the past hour or so. She swallowed her morbid interest in just what had been playing basketball with the head, picked up a medicine bottle lying around, and the second key. Arelia nudged the dog's head with her boot as she came near. It barked loudly and nipped her ankle, but when she turned back to look at it, it was still and dead. She did not nudge it again.

On Ellroy Street itself, Arelia found nothing out of the ordinary. Monsters to kill, yes, but nothing to indicate a third key. She walked as far south as she could go, looking at the forlorn houses almost slumping with depression at the lack of owners. All those houses had were memories ingrained into their walls and rooms. She was so wrapped up in feeling alone that she almost tripped and fell face-first into the gap.

She had hit another edge. _Son of a bitch..._ Arelia walked to and fro along the edge, scowling at the expanse below, wondering if she'd have to jump into it to find the third key. On the west side of the street, a plank extended across. Carefully, Arelia crossed over it to a small chunk of land containing a single mailbox. She opened the mailbox and reached inside it, pulling out a key from its bloody depths. She wiped it off on her pants before crossing back over the plank and heading back for the house.


	7. Finding My Calling

There was the back door again, with its three locks on the inside, each key able to bring her out into whatever lay beyond. Arelia looked at the keys and then back at the door. Her grandmother's house had a door like this, but it had been the front door, with many more locks. Her grandmother had not been much of a people person.

She slipped the first key into the first lock and twisted it. _Snap._ The second for the second. _Snap. _The third for the third. _Snap-click._ Arelia left the keys in their locks and opened the back door, stepping out in to pitch black.

The door closed behind her. It would not open again.

_It's dark again already? _Arelia wondered. She fumbled for the clip-on light and turned it on. There were two medicine bottles on a table in the backyard. She took them and approached the gate that led around the chasms, but paused before unlatching it. She climbed up the gate and looked out over top of it, her light coming to rest on the muzzle of a dog. It was waiting for her. So were others. She could hear their wheezing coming from the sub alleys. _Damnation._

Arelia let herself slide down from the gate and cursed several times to herself. She checked her handgun, then reloaded it to fifteen shots. She turned off her flashlight and waited. Waited. Waited. The dog left. She opened the gate.

Barking to her left. Arelia ran hard down the alley, alternating the gun from left to right and firing shots into the sub alleys. She was moving fast; a dog leapt from the left and just barely missed her. She felt it skim her jacket with its skin. Another dog from the right did the same. Two dogs on her right retreated as she shot at them. She ran until she reached the main road.

On Matheson, she turned right and headed for the intersection. She jogged to a stop at the crossroads and turned on her light to check her map. She was breathing hard and her legs were shaking. She stretched her calves a little while she determined what direction she was supposed to be going in.

After a while of serious backtracking, Arelia turned left and headed toward Midwich Elementary.


	8. Midwich

_ God, I don't want to be here._

__Arelia was standing in front of the fog-shrouded Midwich Elementary school, staring at a bus with its windows shot out. It was like Silent Hill turned into the epitome of evil in the world when it became dark. Children with guns included.

She climbed the steps to the front doors of the school, the sketchbook page with the writing on it flashing in her mind for a second. _To school. _It played like a death sentence in her head. She opened the door and stepped inside.

_Not bad._ It was a nice, clean indoor school. Arelia shut the door behind her and walked through the first room, grabbing the school map on her way through the doors into the main hallway. To her right, the double doors were locked, but next to them was a door leading to the infirmary. She took the medicine bottle, the first-aid kit, and looked at the wound on her forearm. It had stopped bleeding, but still looked like a nasty open laceration. She took her time washing it out and using the first-aid kit to seal the wound. When she was done, Arelia walked to the other end of the hall. There was a reception desk with three books, their pages bloody and thick with gore. She looked at the book farthest to the left.

  


10:00

"Alchemy Laboratory"

Gold in an old man's palm

The future hidden in his fist

Exchange for sage's water

  


The next one was just as confusing.

  


12:00

"A Place With Songs and Sound"

A silver guidepost is

Untapped in lost tongues

Awakening at the ordained order

  


_The Hell? _Arelia looked at the third, hoping for some sense in its text.

  


5:00

"Darkness The Brings The Choking Heat"

Flames render the silence

Awakening the hungry beast

Open time's door to beckon prey

  


_How helpful,_ she snarled inwardly, bringing forth malice to battle the fear. She wrote down the disturbing and cryptic haikus on the back of the school map, underlining the times and titles. She bit the end of the red pen for a moment while she thought, then put the cap back on it and put both map and pen away.

Behind the desk Arelia found a door. It led to the teacher's lounge. _What I wouldn't do for a relaxing smoke in here,_ she thought, picking up a box of bullets on the table. _Bullets in a school. Go figure. Maybe someone's been here before me?_ She sat down on one of the lounge couches and stretched out, taking a cigarette from her front jacket pocket and igniting the end with her lighter. She puffed it serenely as she put away the lighter.

On the wall was an extraordinarily odd picture of a run-down hallway, its walls full of rot and what appeared to be blood. There was a door at the end of the hall with no knob and no keyhole. _Screwy son of a bitch teachers, weren't they?_ After she had relaxed for a time, Arelia got up, still smoking her cigarette, and left the lounge.

Through the center doors she found the courtyard. The air was less stale than it had been in the school, but there was something putrid about it. She inhaled again and stopped walking. Grass still crunched under something's feet. Radio whistling. _And just when this was becoming reasonably enjoyable..._

__Two zombie children approached her, and she recognized them as the creatures that had "killed" her before. She waited for them to come closer, aiming her gun at the closest. _Come and get it, you son of a bitch bastards..._

__She unloaded three rounds into the first; it fell hard and began to rattle deep in its throat. The third one cut open her right pant leg just below the knee. Arelia kneed it in its mangled face, held her gun to the top of its head, and loaded it with five more rounds. She stomped on the first one's throat until the radio went silent again.

Something made her glance up at the massive clock tower at the far end of the courtyard. 10:00. _Gold in an old man's palm..._

__Arelia crossed the courtyard to the other building, coming through the double doors and into a hallway. Three more zombie children came at her. She disposed of them, reloaded, and headed to the middle doors. In the room they led to, she found a box of handgun bullets, which she took without hesitation. On her way out, she nearly tripped over a small, black ghost child. It screamed indignantly, but did not attack. It went on about its business, crying quietly, it seemed, though it did follow Arelia's movements when she crouched to study it.

_Derek's at school now..._

__She lowered her head, then looked back at the ghost and extended her hand.

"Hello, Derek."

The ghost looked at her, sniffled, and waddled away. Arelia stood up and exhaled smoke through slightly parted lips, keeping the cigarette in her mouth with slight pressure from her teeth. _Damn-frickin'-nation._ Her stomach was tying itself in knots. She felt cold when near the child. She felt colder knowing it was once a living boy. Someone who was loved. Someone who loved. Someone with parents who he made happy. A happy, playful little boy.

_Damn._

__Arelia opened the door to leave and looked back at the sad, lonely black ghost.

"Goodbye, Derek," she said quietly as she left.

Once out of that room, she turned right and found the Teacher's Room doors to be locked. All of them. In the bathrooms, appropriately, she found more ammunition. In the boy's room, there seemed to be a sobbing, crying sound coming from the very end stall. When Arelia opened the door, she found nothing. _Better than what it could be, I suppose._

__She unlocked the door to the main hall from the other side, and headed upstairs.

The first classroom she came to she explored extensively, finding a medicine bottle and frightful drawings on the children's desks. She frowned and looked at the demonic faces for a while, then went on to the second classroom, and then the third.

As she closed the door, she froze. Something was moving around in the darkness of the room. The radio did not go off, but she knew something was there. She crouched low and moved slowly, turning off her flashlight so she wouldn't be detected too early. She stayed low like a kickboxer, holding her gun with both hands, taking aim at the slightly darker shape in front of her.

_Steady..._

__She exhaled her smoke.

_Steady... and..._

__Arelia was blind. She stumbled back, holding her hand up in front of her face to shield herself from the light. She held up her gun and began to squeeze the trigger, cigarette dropping to the floor.

"Hold it!" Arelia put down the gun and blinked several times until her eyes adjusted. Joshua Bishop was shining a flashlight in her face.

"Bishop?"

"What did I tell you about that gun, miss?" he said, reaching to take it away from her. She moved it out of range and batted the flashlight away.

"Dammit, Bishop, what are you doing?" Bishop turned off his flashlight, and she turned on hers. 

"Weird stuff going on," he muttered, looking around before looking back at her. "Where have you been?"

"I'm not done asking you questions," she hissed. "Why are you in an elementary school?"

"Ma'am, answer my question first."

"Do you have a gun?"

"I gave you mine."

Arelia aimed her gun at his head. "Good. Then answer my questions." Bishop glared at her, and the warmth, kindness, and happiness upon seeing her vanished. He crossed his arms and cocked his head to one side slightly.

"I was looking around town, and some weird flying thing chased me in here."

"How did you get here? All roads to this school are blocked."

"I went through somebody's yard."

"Your backup got here. Did you know that?"

"They said they'd come."

"They're either MIA or dead. Pick which one makes you feel better." She lowered her gun and smoothed her ponytail absently. "I found their empty cars."

"Where have you been?" Bishop repeated, visibly agitated with her. Arelia put one hand on her hip.

"Roaming around following cryptic clues and killing demons." He raised a brow, and she challenged him with a serious stare. The two stood there glaring at each other for a while before Bishop cleared his throat.

"So, what's going on here?" he asked evenly.

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." She looked him over. "Are you injured?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Then come with me." She opened the door for him and held it, her face a mask of shadows behind the flashlight. He smiled, the warmth returning.

"Miss me?" Arelia sighed as he walked out.

"You have no idea," she answered and closed the door behind them.


	9. Gold in an Old Man's Palm

The Lab Equipment room offered three things, only one of which proved to be of any use whatsoever to anybody.

On a dusty, dark shelf, three beakers kept each other company. One was quickly identified as glucose, and the second was less readily identified as distilled water. The third turned out to be hydrochloric acid. The distilled water and glucose were of no use to Arelia; she overlooked them and gave the beaker of acid to Bishop to hold while she did a quick sweep of the room. There was nothing else of use.

She sat on one of the desks and took out the school map, biting down on the end of her red pen, and looked at the 10:00 haiku written on the back. _Alchemy Laboratory._ Was there anything like that in the school? When she looked over the rooms, she found nothing with "Alchemy" in the title. She looked up at Bishop, who was shining his flashlight in the jars, beakers, and vials littering the room.

"What's a synonym for 'alchemy'?"

Bishop continued inspecting an unknown animal that had been pickled in a jar. "Ummmm... Chemistry?" he guessed without turning around. Arelia looked back at the school map and found what she was looking for: The Chemistry Lab. It was next door. She folded up the map again and hopped down from the table.

They took the acid into the Chemistry Lab. Wind whistled ominously outside the windows; Arelia mistook it for her radio a moment and drew her gun.

"What's wrong?" Bishop said behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She lowered the gun. _I must look like a nutcase. _

"Nothing," she said after a while. "Sorry." She closed one of the open windows and ran into a table in the dark, her thigh catching the point hard. "_SON OF A MOTHER BITCH BASTARD!_" Arelia screamed, jumping back and holding her thigh in massive amounts of pain. Bishop blinked at her.

"Ma'am? You all right?" He crossed the room and put an arm around her shoulders while she crouched and held her leg, feeling the dull throb of a pulse against her hand. She groaned and lowered her head for a moment.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Colorful mouth you got," Bishop muttered. Arelia stood and released her thigh. "Come from being a Marine?"

"Ex-Marine," she corrected bitterly, and kicked the table leg so hard it splintered. Something rattled as the table rocked from the impact. Arelia frowned. "Shine your light over here, will you, kid?" The police officer adjusted the path of his light, catching in it a disembodied hand lying still on the table. Bishop jumped slightly.

"You really _haven't_ seen much of this town, have you?" Arelia said stiffly, one eyebrow raised. Bishop glared at her as she went about touching the hand. "Relax, it's a statue. It never belonged to anybody." She picked it up off the table and inspected it more closely. "Looks like it's holding something."

After banging it hard against the table failed to produce even a crack, Arelia stopped and set it down again.

"Ma'am?" She looked over at Bishop, who had extended his arm and was holding the hydrochloric acid out to her. She took it and nodded to him, then poured the chemical over the hand very carefully.

The statue sizzled and dissolved until Arelia could pull forth a gold medallion from its dissipated grip. It gleamed in the light and reflected it into Bishop's glasses. Arelia frowned.

"Odd," she remarked. 

"What's it for, do you think?" asked Bishop.

_Gold in an old man's palm..._

_Exchange for sage's water..._

__Well, that much made sense. The medallion had been in the gnarled statue of a hand, and the "sage's water" had been the hydrochloric acid, which had been used in exchange for the gold. _What comes next? 12:00..._

__"Come on," said Arelia. "We're going to the clock tower."


	10. A Place of Songs and Sound

There was the clock tower again, looming up into the darkness and fog like a giant cobra rearing to strike. Two smaller figures were outlined against it; and ex-Marine and a police officer, both so very tiny in comparison to the tower. The power the two held seemed to make it shudder, however; the gold medallion began to burn in Arelia's hand. She felt the base of the clock tower for a slot and found a small groove on its left side, where she carefully inserted the medallion.

The clock groaned. When they looked up at its face, it had stopped at 12:00.

"A place of songs and sound," Arelia whispered, humbled in the complexity of the moment. Bishop seemed less fazed. He lowered his flashlight and stared up at the clock face thoughtfully.

"A music room, maybe?"

"Maybe." The map indicated there was a Music Room in the school. Arelia and Bishop easily found it, also finding a piano with blood stained keys and a message written in the same life fluid on the chalkboard.

  


"A Tale of birds without a voice"

  


first flew the greedy pelican

eager for the reward

white wings flailing

  


then came a silent dove

flying beyond the pelican

as far as he could

  


a raven flies in

flying higher than the dove

just to show that he can

  


a swan glides in

to find a peaceful spot

next to another bird

  


finally out comes a crow

coming quickly to a stop

yawning and then napping

  


who will show the way

who will be the key

who will lead to

the silver reward?

  


Both read it over several times. Neither could understand it, or what in the world it had to do with anything at all.

Arelia walked over to the piano, touching its red, white and black keys, her touch gentle so as not to make a sound. She set up her hands over Middle C and thought back to her piano lessons. She had taken them when she was a child, and had become quite good. She remembered the concerts and recitals she had been asked to attend and perform in. She smiled to chase away the nostalgia.

"I used to play," she said aloud to Bishop, who looked over his shoulder and smiled.

"Really? Will you play something for me?" Arelia thought back again, attempting to find an appropriate song to play for him. After a while, she resorted to letting her hands play blindly, the way she had allowed them to do when she became lost in the music so long ago.

A haunting tune escaped the keys, familiar and yet Arelia found herself unable to place it. She let the music trill from the piano until she hit a key that made no sound at all. She stopped playing and stared at the piano. Bishop had heard it as well, and glanced at her.

"You play well," he said. "Why did you stop?"

"Some of the keys are mute," she answered. She looked at the riddle on the chalkboard again. "You know, none of the birds in that poem have any mention of voices." Bishop read it again and nodded, putting his hand to his chin and stroking his goatee in thought.

"And the color of the birds are black and white. They could correspond to the colors of the piano keys."

"But where do they land?" asked Arelia, the question directed at no one in particular.

Both thought for some time until Bishop came up with an answer. He walked over to Arelia and sat next to her on the piano bench, looking at the keys, then at the poem, then back at the keys again. Slowly he pressed the third key. Then the tenth. Eleventh. Eighth. He made eye contact with Arelia for a long moment before pressing the second key on the scale. Something fell and hit the floor. Arelia leaned over and picked up a silver medallion. Both smiled at each other.

On their way to the clock tower, the radio began whistling. Arelia was too slow to react to it; Bishop was tackled hard to the ground before she could turn to shoot. He turned over onto his back to face his attacker and was met with the startling first-person view of a child's mangled, inhuman face glaring into his. He sincerely wished he hadn't shined his flashlight on it. The zombie reared up and stabbed Bishop hard in the right shoulder, spurting blood high into the air and throwing it over his uniform as the knife was pulled out. Arelia had a good shot and was about to fire when Bishop let out a roar of anger and pain, sat up, and punched a hole through the zombie's head.

The police officer stood and shook off the thing, and grabbed another one approaching. He swung it hard into the wall several times, getting his arm slashed up in the process. He brought it back down to the ground and beat it to death with his riot baton. The radio crackled and faded into its usual hum. Arelia stared as Bishop came after her next, slamming her hard against the wall.

"Bishop! Bishop, it's me, put me _down_!" His vibrant blue eyes were dark with rage and his body shook slightly from the adrenaline snaking through his system. She stared into his eyes with a deep challenge and waited. Slowly they cleared, and he set her down carefully, staggering back and holding his bleeding right forearm. Arelia stayed up against the wall while he doubled over, snarling quietly.

"What _are_ those things?!" he hissed as blood pumped through his fingers. Slowly Arelia left the wall and came to his side, reaching into her jacket and handing him a medicine bottle.

"Drink this." Bishop took it while she put pressure on his wound and stared into the deep gash in his shoulder. He finished the bottle and tossed it aside; Arelia relieved pressure when she found the wound had completely healed on his forearm. She gave him a second bottle for his shoulder injury, which healed in the same manner.

"Weird," she murmured.

"Effective," Bishop corrected. He reached over and touched Arelia's cheek. "Thank you." For a moment, he smiled at her and brushed the path of her cheek bone with his thumb, then flew back hard as she punched him in the face. He landed with a loud thud at the end of the hall and sat up slightly, looking at her, stunned.

"That's for slamming me against a wall," she said as she passed him on the way to the clock tower. Bishop laid back down on the floor and decided it was worth his while to ask her a question while she was out of range.

"Can I have another medicine bottle?"

"No," came the answer from down the hall.


	11. The Darkness

The silver medallion fit easily in the clock tower. Another groan, a little more frightened than before, came from the shivering tower. 5:00. _The darkness that brings the choking heat..._

"Flames render the silence, awakening the hungry beast, open time's door to beckon prey," Bishop recited as Arelia showed him the poems on the back of the map. He shook his head. "Well, the title is 'Darkness That Brings the Choking Heat', and the titles have always meant something before. So if you look at it literally and switch it around, it becomes a dark place generating heat." Bishop shrugged and looked down at his feet. He was doing a good job of sulking after Arelia hit him.

"A dark place like a basement, maybe?" she prodded.

"I guess," he responded half-heartedly.

"A basement with a boiler?"

"I guess."

Arelia found it on the map and patted Bishop's cheek. "You're still my little puzzle-solver, even if you are moping." He glared at her as she strolled into the school and followed, dragging his feet.

In the dark, hot basement, Arelia found that she was truly afraid of what could be lurking within it. Bishop had closed the door behind them, and she was scared they may never find it again. The single red eye of the boiler stared at them warily as they approached.

"Shine your light over here," she said, gesturing to the switches dimly illuminated by her pocket flashlight. Bishop illuminated them further with his brighter light. "It's off." She cautiously flipped the boiler on and a low, ominous grumbling sound reverberated throughout the room.

"It's on now," Bishop observed. He looked at Arelia. "Time's door is the clock tower." He was obviously done sulking.

Outside, the courtyard looked pale and scared. Snow tinted the grass lighter colors, as if draining them of pigment. The bushes shook. The clock tower trembled and whimpered. Arelia opened the door and took a deep breath of cold, snowy air. _It may be the last time you ever breathe it._ She heard Bishop do the same thing behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. It was just enough to give her the courage to step into the clock tower.

As soon as she stepped inside, Arelia began to have second thoughts. _I really don't want to do this,_ she whined internally, gripping the bars of the ladder leading down into a pit and beginning to descend with Bishop close behind. The darkness seemed to close in around her the further down she went, choking her, clawing her will, trying to rip out her throat so she could not scream. At the bottom, she placed her feet solidly on the ground, thankful to have something of substance beneath her feet to hold her up. She moved away from the ladder to give Bishop room and glanced around at the empty bottles strewn over the area.

In the distance, sirens screamed. Bishop looked around hopefully, wanting more than anything to see policemen coming down that ladder to take them away from here.

There was not much there. Just another ladder. Arelia began to climb up it, again with Bishop following, until they both reached a door leading to somewhere. She waited for Bishop to touch her shoulder again, but he never did. Drawing from her own courage, she opened the door and stepped out into the nightmare.


	12. Her Fear Returns

Rain drizzled in large drops from the overcast sky, splashing hard onto the courtyard. The snow was gone. It was no longer as cold. In fact, it was pleasantly warm. It seemed as if they had only gone through one side of the clock tower to the other, and as if their time spent within it had allowed for a weather change. They were in the same courtyard they had just left.

"Well, that was fun," Bishop said quietly behind Arelia, who was chewing irritably on her lower lip. She walked around to the center of the courtyard and crouched low, staring a strange symbol carved into the ground. It was unaffected by the rain. Bishop looked at it and said nothing for a long time.

"It's a symbol of witchcraft," he informed her after the pause. "Do you really intend on going inside?"

"Yes."

"I thought as much."

She dusted herself off and walked with Bishop to the double doors across from the clock tower, huddling with him under the awning for a while to dry off. She wiped the water off the gun and opened the door for him.

"Ladies first," he said with a nervous smile. When Arelia glared at him, he shrugged. "You're the one with the gun." She scowled and walked inside, and when she did not scream, Bishop followed. He held his bloodied riot baton close as the doors closed behind them and stepped onto rusted, ugly metal grating.

The school had significantly changed. It had become a twisted parody of a torture den, releasing the evil that it had been containing all along. _You released the evil,_ Arelia thought. The realization twisted her stomach into brutal knots that any sailor would be proud of. Beside her, Bishop muttered a quick prayer to God to get them through it all.

Three zombie children assaulted them from the darkness; Arelia killed two with her gun and Bishop took out the third with his riot baton. They looked at each other over the bodies and found the same expression reflected in each other's faces. They were both scared to death.

Through the double doors across the hall, there was a huge spinning fan behind an iron-grate wall, its blades splattered with gore of body parts and thick, dried blood. Bishop seemed to lose his small-town-police-officer persona and morphed into a grim statue of a man, the spark in his gentle blue eyes fading to a pinprick pulsation of light.

"What happened here?" he wondered aloud as Arelia collected the bullets and first-aid kit lying on a bench.

"I have a feeling you don't really want to know," she answered quietly. "There's a Storage Room down the hall, according to the map. I think we should take a look around and see if we can find anything of use."

"I agree. And I want a gun."

The two proceeded to the Storage Room, where they found nothing of very much use at all. On a table toward the back, however, Arelia picked up a pink rubber ball. Bishop looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"It's the only thing of genuine color and reality in this place," she said. "It must be worth something."

They headed left upon leaving the Storage Room, and Arelia led them to the door next to the double doors at the end of the hall. Upon entering, her radio went off, but a quick sweep of the room found nothing. 

"What _is _that?" Bishop asked in relation to the radio static.

"I found it in the cafe. It emits static when monsters are nearby."

"Weird," he said.

"Effective," she corrected with a grin. Her grin faded when she stepped on something slick and gooey. She looked down to see her boot partially swallowed in the body of a giant cockroach, which was still squirming under her in an attempt to get away. Its green, slimy internal mush was what she had felt when she first stepped down.

Two more of the freakishly large roaches bolted from corners of the room, nipping at Arelia's ankles with sharp mandibles. She shot one and kicked it into the wall, trying to free herself from the mess of a roach beneath her. Bishop killed the other with his baton and helped her remove her boot from the screeching insect holding it captive in its own body. She shot it spitefully when free and held on to Bishop as she tried to removed the goo from the bottom of her boot.

"Bloody Hell," she spat.

"Yes, that's a fairly accurate description," he agreed. When she was done, he nodded to a door to the right of where they had come in. "I think that's the way out." She followed him through the door into a long, narrow hallway, slightly bothered by the harsh noises their footsteps made on the rusted grates. She did not, under any circumstances, look down. Arelia had no desire to know what was below her.

In the center of the hallway, their way was blocked by a fence of grating that stretched to the ceiling.

"Blast it," Bishop muttered, scowling. He kicked the fence several times, but it held fast. Arelia pointed to the classroom door to their left.

"Maybe we can get around it that way," she suggested with a look of hope. He nodded and winced at the string of curses she let out after entering.

"_YOU STUPID-ASS SONS OF BITCHES!_" Gunshots. Radio silence. Bishop looked around the door frame and saw Arelia standing over the corpses of two zombie children. She was furiously smoking on a new cigarette.

"Next time, _you _will be going in first." Bishop smiled gently and nodded. 

"Deal," he said. She showed him to the door to the next room and he entered first. "Nothing here." Arelia stepped in, cursing her luck, and his. He picked up a picture card on a table and showed it to her. "What do you make of this?"

"Looks like a key to me," she said honestly. He looked at the picture of the key and frowned.

"Think we should keep it?"

"May as well."

Bishop slid the picture card into the pocket of his uniform pants before going through the next door, which took him out into the hall on the other side of the fence. He picked up the health drink on one of the benches and motioned to Arelia that it was safe to come out. Another fence blocked the stairwell, but he found it was still possible to get to the main hall. He had killed two zombie children wandering about the hallway when he realized Arelia was not with him.

He backtracked into the room where he had found the picture card, and saw her walking around the room touching the desks in silence. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.

"Arelia?"

She continued walking around and briefly touching the desks. Bishop sighed worriedly and took a step forward, pausing as she began to speak.

"These used to be children's desks," she said. "They used to have children in them. Children like Derek, who were loved once. This used to be real." He walked over to her and tried to bring her into his arms, but she pushed him away. "Don't touch me."

He sadly watched her as she started destroying the desks, raising her leg and stomping on one hard, splintering wood, throwing them into one another and against walls, until all that was left was one single desk and a pile of fire wood.

"That one is Derek's," Arelia said quietly. Bishop got his arms around her that time, pulling her into his chest and holding her until she relaxed.

_Blue and red blue and red blue and red..._

__"How long have you been awake?" he asked, holding her at his arms' length by the shoulders. She shrugged weakly.

"Hard to tell time around here. But I've gone days without sleep before."

"Must be a Marine thing."

"Ex-Marine."

"Right."

"Did you find how to get into the main hallway?"

"Yes. Do you plan on coming with me this time?"

Arelia did not say anything. The two finally made it into the main hallway together, and she took Bishop into the infirmary where they found two additional medicine bottles, both of which he took for storage. They also unlocked the doors to the courtyard and found the entry hallway.

The floor in the center of the room was gone, leaving a gaping black abyss. Above the hole, bodies were strung up on the ceiling, along with oddly placed cages. In a corner was a heaped, wrecked wheelchair. Arelia frowned at it. _What's _that_ doing here?_ Her radio went off. _More zombie brats._

__Once she and Bishop had dispatched them, she searched the wheelchair, curious as to what it was doing in an elementary school. She found no identification or answer to the question, but she did find a strange item Bishop recognized as an Ampoule.

Back in the main hall, the double doors to the next hallway were locked. Arelia suggested the same method as before, and they stepped into the Teacher's Lounge next to the locked exit. Bishop was surprised. Arelia wasn't.

It was the ugly picture from before. A large stone door with no handle or knob.

"Give me the picture card," she said, and Bishop handed it over. She slid the picture of the key into a slot in the door, opened it, and stepped into the hall.


	13. The Stall

"I have to use the restroom," Bishop said.

"What? Now?"

"Yeah."

Arelia stared at him in utter disbelief. "I think I'm going to kill you and save you the time."

"I'm serious, Arelia."

"All right, there's one nearby. But be quick about it." She led him to the men's room and leaned against the rot-covered wall outside patiently. He opened the door and stepped through, then paused and looked back at Arelia. 

"You really should come in with me," he said. He watched her turn her pale and cold face toward him, eyebrows lifting slightly.

"Don't tell me you need help."

"No, no, it's not that. But there are things outside, and I don 't want to get separated from you."

"You won't. I'll be right out here. I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt it."

"Look, I'm not going to sit in there while you take a piss."

"Haven't you ever watched horror movies?"

Arelia considered this.

"Good point." She followed him into the men's room and stood with her back to him, the smoke from her cigarette filling the room and obscuring her vision of the wall. There were no stalls in the bathroom, save for one at the very end. Bishop used one of the open urinals stained with blood and pus, neither of which he was very happy to get close to. He could hear Arelia tapping her foot impatiently. When he was finished, he went over to wash his hands in the sink. Upon turning it on, the faucet spurted out dark, dirty water for a few moments before slowly filtering into clean water. He washed his hands and glanced over at Arelia, who was staring at the end stall silently.

"Find something interesting?" he asked with a small smile.

"You tell me," she responded, indicating to him that he should take a look. Bishop walked over and opened the stall door, jumping back as a hanging corpse greeted him with staring, lifeless eyes and a mouth gaping in agony. Its purple, coated tongue lolled over its teeth and a yellow-white slime dribbled out over the lower lip.

"Oh, God," he whispered.

Arelia picked up a sawed-off, double barreled shotgun off the floor and handed it to Bishop. "You got your gun," she said. She watched as he looked it over admiringly. "There's some writing on the wall." Bishop glanced at it.

  


Leonard Rhine - The Monster Lurks

  


"What does _that_ mean?" he wondered aloud.

"It looks like a book title and the author."

"Didn't we pass a library a while back?"

"I think we might have," said Arelia. "I'll check the map." When she was done, she nodded. "Yeah, it was on the second floor."

"Great. Let's head for it, shall we?"

"Just a second." Arelia took a deep breath during her pause, then let it out with a sigh. "Look, I know I gave you a hard time about needing to use the restroom, but would you mind if I used the ladies' room before we go?" Bishop smirked slightly, puffed his chest out a little, and shook his head.

"Naw, it's okay. It's right around here, right?"

"Yeah. I'll only be a minute." He followed her out the door to the ladies' room, but she pushed him out when he tried to follow her inside. "You may stay out here," she said firmly.

"But what about not getting separated?"

"I'm not afraid of losing _you_. Besides, nothing is going to happen. I'll be right out," she assured him.

When she had thoroughly checked for corpses, relieved herself, and had washed her hands, Arelia walked out the door and found a dark, empty hallway. Bishop was gone.

"Bishop?" she called. No answer. _Oh, God. He was right. Oh, God, I shouldn't have gone in alone, oh, God..._

__She tried the men's room again, but found only shotgun and handgun ammunition. Taking the two, she walked back out into the hall and walked up and down it, searching for the police officer. _He's just playing a trick on you,_ she thought. _He's just getting you back for being so damn cocky._

__Her search ended with the discovery of two stairwells, one leading up, the other leading down. She looked at her map and then at the layout of the hallway. _How in the world did I get up to the second floor?_

__She went back in and out of the ladies' room, and this time Bishop was waiting patiently, if sulking a little. It was all Arelia could do not to throw her arms around his neck and kiss his face in relief.

"You ready now?" he asked somberly.

"Quite," she replied. They made their way to one of the teacher's rooms and killed two roaches and a zombie child after Arelia gave Bishop the shotgun ammunition. In the next room, they found a table with blue telephones on it, but nothing of use.

"Weird," Bishop said, and went to the door.

One of the phones suddenly began ringing. Both Arelia and Bishop nearly jumped out of their skins. Arelia looked at the ringing phone.

"That's impossible," she said. "There's no cord to the receiver."

"There's no cord from the phone to an outlet, either," Bishop noticed. He picked up the receiver and listened intently for a long ten seconds. Silence. He handed it to Arelia. "I don't hear anything." She took the receiver and put it to her ear. Three seconds passed. Five.

"Mommy?" The terrified voice was sudden and unexpected. Arelia brought Bishop closer so he could hear the young girl on the other end. "Mommy, help me! Where are you?"

"Talk to her," he urged. She wet her lips, unsure of what to say, suddenly dry-mouthed.

"It's going to be all right, little girl. I just need to know where you are." There was a click. "Hello? Hello?" A busy tone. She waited a while, then hung up the phone. "Damn!"


	14. The Monster Lurks

Out the door and all the way up the stairs to the roof. In one corner there were three points of interest: a valve handle, an empty drainpipe, and another drainpipe with a key inside. Arelia inspected both pipes thoroughly before standing from her crouch.

"I thought we were going to the Library?" Bishop said.

"I have a feeling we're going to have to look all over the school for keys," she answered. "I want to get it over with _now_." The key could not be reached by hand, and neither Bishop nor Arelia had anything to get it out with. Frustrated, they retreated to the top of the stairwell out of the rain and sat against opposite walls, playing catch with the pink rubber ball Arelia had found earlier.

"So what now?" Bishop asked, catching the ball as it bounced off the floor and came to him. He bounced it back to Arelia, who also caught it.

"I don't know. There's got to be some kind of trick to it, right? Exchange something for something else? That's what it's been before." She bounced the ball back to Bishop.

"Well, what do we have to exchange?" Throw. Bounce. Catch. Arelia looked at the ball in her hand, smiled, and walked back up the stairs. Curious, Bishop followed her.

She placed the rubber ball in the empty drain pipe and turned the valve handle. Water poured out over the ball, now that it was blocking it from draining, and washed the key down the second drain. Bishop leaned over the edge of the roof and shined his flashlight down onto the wet grass.

"Courtyard," he said unhappily.

They went all the way back to the courtyard and searched carefully for the key, Arelia on her hands and knees, and Bishop sweeping small areas with his flashlight. After a few minutes of combing the grass, Arelia found it lying next to an outflow pipe in a puddle of muddy water. She held it up for Bishop to see and stood.

"Now we can go to the second floor."

The classrooms on the second floor were of little interest, but the hall where the music room was located harbored three zombie children. With Arelia's handgun and Bishop's shotgun, they were easily rid of. The music room door was jammed. They went instead to the locker room.

Arelia walked around the locker room curiously, inspecting a few lockers for anything of use. She tried not to look down at the bloodstained floor too often, but Bishop seemed very interested in it. He followed various trails of blood up the walls, to the ceiling, and then to some of the large splatters of blood directly under it on the floor. He shook his head.

"Lots of kids must have been killed here," he muttered. "Dragged up the walls and dropped from the ceiling. Gutted, I imagine. There's a lot of blood, so their major arteries may have been damaged, as well." From a locker across the room, Arelia looked up at him with an expression of distaste.

"How morbidly fascinating," she replied. Bishop didn't seem to notice. He was now interested in a thumping locker on the far right side, far right end of the last row. Something wanted out. She followed him and leaned against one of the lockers further away. "I wouldn't touch that, if I were you." He ignored her and tapped the locker with the base of his flashlight. The noise stopped, and the locker door swung open on creaky hinges.

"Nothing but blood," he said. He turned to leave. Suddenly, the locker Arelia had been leaning against opened, catching her in the ribs, and knocked her over. A corpse fell out on top of her. Its dead weight was pinning her to the floor. She kicked it off and scooted back to the wall, breathing hard as her heart pounded with fear.

"Fascinating," Bishop said. "I wonder how that one died." He looked at Arelia, who was staring wide-eyed. "Are you okay?"

"Yes... Yes, I'm fine. It just startled me. Sorry." She stood up and searched the corpse.

"How morbid of you," Bishop said with a grin. "Looting the dead, are we?"

"No," she answered, producing a key from the body. "Just getting what was left for us."

In the hall with the Chemistry Lab and Storage Room, Arelia found both doors to be locked. She did, however, find the Library Reserve door and unlocked it with the key obtained from the corpse. Looking over the shelves, she found the book in question and sat down at one of the tables to read it in peace. Bishop picked up a copy of the Holy Bible and looked it over curiously.

After a time, she set the book down and sighed. Bishop did not look up from his text.

"So, does the monster lurk?"

"Yes," Arelia said, leaning back in her chair. "Apparently, in adolescent girls."

"Well, yes, that's been explained by raging hormones that induce mood swings at certain times of the month."

"I'm serious, Bishop."

"So am I."

"Read this, will you?" She handed him 'The Monster Lurks'. He picked it up and shined his flashlight on the pages.

  


Chapter 3

"Manifestation of Delusions"

  


...Poltergeists are among these. Negative emotions, like fear, worry or stress manifest into external energy with physical effects. Nightmares have, in some cases, been shown to trigger them. However, such phenomena do not appear to happen to just anyone. Although it's not clear why, adolescents, especially girls, are prone to such occurrences...

  


When he was finished, Bishop handed the book back to her.

"Strange," he said. "I wonder why our bathroom friend wanted us to read that?"

"Maybe it has something to do with whatever's going on around here. Remember that girl on the phone?"

"She sounded much younger than the span 'adolescent' applies to. She sounded around six or seven."

"Look, the Library is right next door. Let's see if we can find anything further there that might help us figure it out, all right?" Arelia stood and motioned to the door. Bishop went through it and aimed his shotgun into the darkness, slowly filling the room with light from his flashlight.

"All clear," he said. He held the door for her and she entered and immediately began scanning through the spines of the books on the shelves. He went to the other side of the library and did the same. She looked over her shoulder at him and mentally sighed. _Should never have dragged him into this. Should have told him to go home. _Still, she was glad that somebody was by her side during the horrible ordeal.

On a table, Arelia found a book opened to the end of a chapter. She picked it up and read through it.

  


"...Hearing this, the hunter, armed with bow and arrow, said, 'I will kill the lizard.' But upon meeting his opponent, he held back, taunting, 'Who's afraid of a reptile?' 

At this, the furious lizard hissed, 'I'll swallow you up in a single bite!' Then the huge creature attacked, jaws opened wide. This was what the man had wanted. 

Calmly drawing his bow, he shot into the lizard's gaping mouth. Effortlessly, the arrow flew, piercing the defenseless maw, and the lizard fell down dead."

  


She looked up after finishing and called Bishop over, who read it through with her again. "I'll give you three guesses as to what we're up to next," she said. "And the first two don't count."

"What's this even from?" the sergeant asked. He closed the book and turned it over. _"A Book of Fairy Tales"._

__"I remember reading this as a kid," said Arelia quietly. "I always thought it had the strangest ending. No finality in it at all. The hunter didn't ride off into the sunset. Evil was defeated, but there was no reward or mention of happiness for the hero in the end."

"Almost like a true story," Bishop said. He looked at her. "Think it'll end that way for us?"

"I don't know if we'll be that lucky," she said. She looked up at the wall ahead of her. "Of course, we could always end up like them."

Bishop shined his flashlight on the wall, illuminating two bodies that had been hanged in straight-jackets, arms over their bloody chests, swinging gently in the darkness.


	15. Breakdown Number One

In the hallway, Arelia tried using the other key on the locked classroom door. It opened, revealing two zombie children.

"All right, ya'll are getting annoying, now," Bishop said as he blasted one's face open with the shotgun. He kicked it on the ground a few times while Arelia battled the second child with the kitchen knife she found in the cafe. He watched her silently as the creature fell, and she immediately came upon it, stabbing it again and again and again with such force and brutality that her face became red with smears of blood. When it was thoroughly inactive (he did not prefer the word 'dead', as the creatures seemed to be deceased already) and Arelia was going too far with her frenzy, Bishop crossed the room to her and pulled her away from the beastly emulation of a child.

"It's dead," he said in the calmest, most soothing manner he could arrange. For a while she stared at her kill before sliding the blade back through her belt and running a bloody hand through her blonde hair. She re-tied it in a pony tail, staining the color with red, and went through the next door with her handgun drawn. This was more reassuring to Bishop: Arelia would not dream of wasting the ammunition on another assault like the last one, and he sincerely doubted she would take the time to pistol whip anything to death. He picked up the handgun ammo and followed her into the next class, then the next hall, and down the stairwell. He noticed she no longer had any clear focus in her eyes. She neither looked down, up, or at the grate walls. Bishop could see the bodies above, below, and behind the grates, and understood why.

He was, however, frightened for her. Her behavioral glitches and outbursts were becoming more frequent. It occurred to him that she might be losing her sanity. The possibility hit him with such force that, for an instant, his heart fluttered unsteadily in his chest. _Please, God, give her strength. Give her the power to traverse this Hell..._

__He watched her unlock the gate previously blocking their way and go through. She had not said a word after seeing the hanging bodies in the library.

_Give her the mental and physical tools to return this town to normal. Give her the drive to pull through unharmed..._

__Arelia led him to the infirmary, where she scribbled down some notes on a notepad and sat on the creaky, rusted, bloodstained bed. She lowered her head and held her gun muzzle-down between her knees, her back curved and shoulders raised like the hackles of a wolf. Her face was obscured in shadows. It was the way she wanted it.

Bishop looked at the notes on the pad sadly. _"Aim for the mouth of the beast when found; avoid its tail. Please, someone, help me..."_

He walked close to Arelia, hoping she would not lash out at him with gun or fist. Her shoulders shook. Her back was tense. Some of her hair fell out of the pony tail and into her face. This was not the stable, organized ex-Marine he had spoken to in the cafe. Her headstrong, stubborn aura had dwindled and faded into a dull glow. She was dying inside.

_Please, God..._

__Lowering himself down to one knee, Bishop positioned himself just between Arelia's knees and looked up into her shadowy features. Her green eyes were still vibrant with life, but their activity had become erratic. He leaned up closer and put his lips near to her ear.

"Arelia...?" When she didn't answer, he cupped her face in his hands to make her look at him. She pulled her gun up to his face and got up, forcing him to crawl backward to get away from her. She held it steadily at the spot between his eyes. When he didn't stare down the barrel with fear and only stared into her eyes with great compassion and concern, she whimpered and threw her gun down. Her face became covered again, this time by her hands, but Bishop pulled them away and held him to her as he had done before. She did not cry. She just trembled.

"I'm a Marine," Arelia whispered. "I'm the best of the best. I'm supposed to be trained for this."

"Ex-Marine," Bishop whispered into her ear. "And you're tough. I know people who would have lost it way before you got this far." He cautiously stroked her hair, taking it out of the ponytail so she could tie it up later. 

"Yeah? If I'm so tough, why are _you_ okay?" She sounded bitter. She sounded angry. He was unsure.

"Well, maybe something happened long ago to make you sensitive to horrible situations such as these? Something with corpses, or genocide, maybe?"

_Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red..._

__"Holocaust movies?"

"That could be it." He handed her the hair tie and watched her put her hair up, smiling at the flowing action, so prosaic to her, and yet so different to him. "You'll be okay, Arelia. You'll be okay."

_Give her strength..._

__"Have you any faith, Arelia?"

"No," she admitted. "No, not really."

"I suggest you get some. I've asked God to give you strength. If you can accept Him, He will be more than happy to help."

"It must be true." She looked up into his face. "He gave me you, didn't He?" Bishop smiled, genuinely touched, and leaned forward a little, his lips close to hers. Suddenly, she stood and nearly knocked him over with the abruptness of the action.

"You ready for the big fight?" Arelia asked as she gathered her handgun.

"Yeah," Bishop answered almost inaudibly. He stood and brushed himself off. "Yeah, I'm ready."


	16. The Lizard King

Down in the basement, Arelia insisted upon re-checking the storage room before proceeding. Inside the dark, rusty room Bishop found two boxes of shotgun shells and another Ampoule. The corpses behind the fenced area of the room did not seem to bother Arelia this time; to Bishop, it seemed as if her mind was absorbing the blows again until the breaking point. He wondered if there would come a time where she would shatter for good.

In the boiler room, they came across another puzzle that even Bishop had a difficult time with.

Two valve handles, one on either side of the room, controlled two rotating gates. The gates had been designed in such a way that they resembled two poles with two sets of spikes protruding from them, so that in order to pass through, one had to rotate them so that their spikes did not interlock and block the entry way.

"This doesn't make any sense," Arelia observed after five different combinations of valve-turning. "There was no mention of this sort of puzzle anywhere."

"I know," her companion sighed quietly. He turned the valve handles back to their original positions. "Watch the gates while I turn the handles, okay?" When she did not answer, Bishop took it for a "yes" and turned the right valve handle to the left once.

"Turn it again," Arelia said after a moment. Bishop turned it again to the left, and she walked over to the left valve handle. She turned it once to the right and cleared the passage.

"How did you know which way to turn it?"

"It was the most simple of answers to the puzzle," Arelia said. "And, often enough, the most simple answer is often the correct one." She entered the passage with her gun drawn, yelling back an all-clear for Bishop to follow. When she heard his gentle breathing next to her and felt his warmth, she pressed a button on the open-doored elevator and closed her eyes as they traveled down into the darkness.

  


_The beating of my heart grows still_

_Yet, with salvation, only one determination is clear:  
To suffer us the abominations inside_

_The walls of madness meant to fear_

  


__Deep breathing from two sources filled the silence made by the radio and made the groaning of the elevator cables easier to bear. Neither warrior reached out for the other; they made their progress alone in the darkness.

  


_And though I do not know to what I venture_

_In the bleeding of the dark and stone_

_Still I can see the light of God_

_And know I never was alone_

  


__The elevator free-fell the last few feet in its shaft, amplifying the beating of Arelia's heart in her ears. She strained her eyes against the depth of the darkness ahead of her, but it was too thick to see through. There were no identifiable shapes for her eyes to settle on. There was just darkness. Overwhelming darkness, spreading over her body and staining it like the ink of an angry squid. She felt along the edges of the door and stepped out into the hallway, jumping as her boots made contact with the metal grates.

A fire suddenly ignited in the center of the room, smothering a corpse standing there with its head bowed. It illuminated the terrified expression on Arelia's face. And something else.

At the far end of the room, lit up behind the fire engulfing the body, was a massive giant of a deformed alligator. Its leathery green-brown skin separated where the indistinguishable head was to reveal a four-parted mouth, much resembling a flower. Rows of sharp teeth filled the petals of powerful skin until the oblivion of the throat, from which tore an ungodly roar of malice and hunger. The body turned, and the stumps serving for legs began a slow progression toward her.

The expanse of the room was not great, and had been designed in a tight circle, the flaming cadaver at its center. Arelia backed up to where the lizard had been as it approached and aimed her gun. It ignored her and turned its vaguely reptilian head toward the elevator shaft, where Bishop had not exited. It stuck its mouth into the narrow passage and slobbered mightily.

"Arelia!" Bishop yelled from the blocked elevator.  
"What?"

"It's drooling on me!"

Arelia came up quickly behind the large specimen of gator and pummeled its hide with shots, none of which seemed to be doing any good. It swung its tail and knocked her unceremoniously into the circular fencing protecting her from the flames.

Bishop, who had backed up into the wall to avoid the deluge of saliva now pooled around the soles of his boots, was faced with the foul breath and dangerous maw of the beast. Convinced that Arelia could do very little for him outside of the space he had been contained in, he fired his shotgun into his aggressor's throat.

The alligator reared back and brought its head out of the offending passage, finding an easier meal in Arelia. It nudged her with its bulbous snout and pushed her into the flame-reflecting wall of the boiler room. Bishop began pumping shots into it from behind while it advanced on the stunned woman and engulfed her body in its mouth up to her waist.

Arelia was now revisiting the impregnable darkness and choking heat, forcefully thrust into the esophogus of the creature. There was very little oxygen, and very much stench, which soon would become her home. Her fading thoughts drifted to the end of the hunter in the story, which she had commented so sadly upon.

"_Think it'll end that way for us?"_ Her diaphram screamed as it was constricted by the jaws of the lizard, and her lungs began to run out of air.

_Bishop..._

__"Shoot it!" a terrified Bishop screamed from somewhere far away. "Shoot it in the mouth, Arelia!"

The blackness of the throat seemed so final and so unforgiving from where Arelia was.

  


_Still I can see the light of God  
And know I never was alone..._

  


__She manuevered her arms in the tight space and forced the cold gun into the warm, soft tissue of the trachea before firing an entire clip into it.

The force triggered the gag-reflex, and she tumbled wet and cold from the mouth that had held her captive. A terrible, pained death-roar filled the room, so great in pitch that the air swirled, shimmered, and trembled. Bishop covered his ears while the Lizard King died.

The fire ceased to be.

All light was taken from the room.

Sirens shrieked, louder than the death song, and then both faded eventually.

Slowly, Arelia opened her eyes, aware of a light source. The boiler room looked normal again, as it had the very first time she had ventured into it with Bishop. He was by her side, leaning over with his hands on his knees to see if she was breathing.

"Arelia? Are you all right?" When she did not answer, he looked up for assistance.

A beautiful young woman was leaning against some machinery in the room, dark hair cut short against her pale face. Her lavender dress with the white sailor collar seemed so out of place that Bishop had to look twice to assure himself that she really was there. The girl smiled at him gently, then faded into nothing. She left only a key behind.

Bishop crossed the room to where the key was, noting the temperature difference of about -20 degrees, and picked it up off the floor. _K. Gordon,_ he read off the tag attached to it. He pocketed the key and rushed back to Arelia's side, attempting several more times to bring her around. Her eyes were open and staring, sometimes blinking, but she refused to answer.

Gently, he picked her up and held her as he fled the school and returned to the serenity of Silent Hill's daytime hours, where the snow melted in the icy-cold sun. He was not sure if he or Arelia would ever feel warm again.


	17. Solitaire

Bishop reached the K. Gordon house in fifteen minutes. His muscles ached and his lungs screamed from running nearly a mile with Arelia in his arms. As soon as he unlocked the door, he stumbled into the bathroom and set her down on her feet. Her knees did not hold the first time and she crumpled back into his arms. Panting, he struggled with her weight and pulled back the shower curtain. Holding her by the back of her jacket, Bishop lowered her head so as to prevent drowning and turned on the cold water.

Gentle ice-droplets sprayed from the shower head, warranting an immediate convulsion from its target. Bishop held her there until she was strong enough to bat him away and shriek with indignation.

"What are you doing?!" she yelled, blindly slapping the wall for the shower controls. Bishop ignored her and held her captive until she began cursing, the indication he had been looking for pertaining to her level of health. He released Arelia's jacket and turned off the cold water.

Arelia put her hands on her knees and lowered her head, trying to regain balance by steadying the stirring of the fluids in her inner ears. She was breathing heavily and straining to keep her legs under her.

"You're all right, now?" Bishop questioned from outside the shower. Slowly, Arelia stood and stepped over the side of the tub, dripping ice water onto the tile floor.

"I'm flipping freezing, thanks to you, jackass!" Her blue lips and constant shaking attested to the fact that she was, indeed, freezing. Bishop didn't care.

"And I ran a mile and a half with you in my arms," he said evenly. "I carried you here worrying that you were dead or dying, worrying that you'd become a vegetable or something."

"I've become," Arelia said, "a popsicle!" Bishop looked at her for a moment before grabbing a towel and handing it to her.

"Here."

She dried her hair as best she could, but her damp clothing held in the low temperatures, and she continued to tremble. Bishop sighed and took her gun.

"Take off your clothes," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Take off," he repeated, "your clothes."

"Bishop, this is hardly the time for..."

"No! No, you gutter-minded wench, get undressed and take a warm shower. I'll see if I can find a dryer." While he turned his back, Arelia undressed and set her clothes in a folded pile on the floor. She watched him warily as she entered the shower, pulled the curtain closed, and turned on the warm water. Feeling safer now that he couldn't see her, she stood under the stream of heat and waited for her shivering to stop.

Outside, Arelia could hear Bishop sigh and pick up her clothing. She closed her eyes, and his gentle smile flashed into her mind. His haunting blue irises. His careful, warm hands. Her body suddenly felt cold despite the hot water matting her golden hair to her face, neck, and shoulders. She turned up the heat and inhaled the steam as it created small beads of water vapor on her lips and skin.

Bishop watched her silhouette trembling behind the shower curtain and felt something icy pull at his core. She looked so distant, so untouchable behind her walls, so remote and almost vacant that it scared him. There was a part of her that he desperately wanted to touch. It was not anything he could easily reach for, and it was the most heavily guarded of all her possessions.

He wanted to touch her heart.

Arelia's shadow stood upright and ran its fingers through her soft, wet hair. Bishop could see the pain in the way she stood, the slight slump in her shoulders that led him to believe maybe she was closer to losing her mind than he had first assessed. Though the tug inside was strong, he turned away his eyes and set off to find a laundry room for her clothing.

Roughly an hour later, Arelia emerged from the shower. Her hair was still damp, but her body was dry and wrapped in a towel. Bishop looked up from his game of Solitaire.

"Are my clothes done?" she asked softly. He nodded and gestured tot he laundry room. His gaze followed her until she was inside, then fell back onto the card game. Two turns passed before she appeared again, dressed and armed. She brushed her hair with her fingers before tying it up into a ponytail again.

"Feeling better?" Bishop asked casually, placing a nine of spades onto a ten of hearts. Arelia nodded, but Bishop hadn't looked up; to him, the question went unanswered. She wrapped her towel around her shoulders to keep her jacket from getting wet.

"Lonely game," she said.

"Hm?"

"That." Arelia sat across from Bishop on the opposite couch. They were sitting in the family room on plush sofas located on either side of a wooden coffee table. The room was moderately lit. Bishop had obviously found the electrical box around the same time he found the cards. "Solitaire, I mean."

"Suppose," he answered noncommittally. "I play it a lot. Most often when I'm in Brahms on the job. The station doesn't get in a lot of calls, so I'm usually stuck somewhere by myself." He paused as he drew a card. He set the ace of diamonds next to the ace of hearts. "All I need is a flat surface. I've always got a deck on me," he added, patting his left shirt pocket.

"Over the heart," Arelia observed. "Any particular reason for that?" Bishop set the two of diamonds onto its corresponding ace.

"Stop trying to analyze me, Arelia. I'm not in the mood for it."

"What are you in the mood for?"

"Sleeping. Maybe dying."

"You've already done that once." Bishop looked up at Arelia. His frost-colored eyes were suddenly framed by a frown.

"What do you mean?" he asked. She began fishing her her pockets as she explained.

"When you first saw me on the road to Silent Hill, you were on your motorcycle, weren't you?"

"Yeah," he said. "What does that have to do with--"

"And you smiled at me through the driver's side window, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I still don't--"

"After that, what did you do?" Bishop was beginning to look frustrated.

"I passed you," he said. "What, are you pissed because I cut you off?"

"After that?" Arelia pressed. "What did you do _after that_?" Bishop stared at her a moment, then lowered his head. His temples began to pulse.

"I can't remember," he said.

"Try."

"I can't," he said again, firmly. Arelia was silent, but he knew she was waiting for an answer. He searched his memory, as full of fog as the town itself, for an accurate response. His eyes closed. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he began to grasp grainy black and white images.

  


_Bishop passed the vehicle and its driver, smiling to himself as he accelerated and lost sight of the truck behind the curve of the road. **She's cute,** he thought to himself. **Pretty dang cute.** **Wonder what she's heading to Silent Hill for?** He didn't worry too much over it. Though he had been sent specifically to investigate the town's loss of contact, he didn't worry about a tourist venturing past the city limits. There was great doubt concerning the possibility of a terrorist operation centered in Silent Hill. She shouldn't be in any real danger._

_His mind flickered back to her. The way she had looked at him, as if confused. Maybe she'd never seen a motorcycle cop before. Depending on where she was from, it was plausible. Bishop wondered if any town could possibly be smaller than Brahms._

_Although Brahms was, indeed, a close-knit family of few houses and fewer roads, their police department still managed to succeed in alienating the townspeople. Many were wary of officers, Bishop in particular. He had been born and raised in Brahms, but ever since he had entered the police academy, things had changed. People had begun to look at him differently, as if he might jump out of his own skin and bite them with the ferocity of a contained demon. Briefly, he wondered where he got that analogy from._

_Within the department, he was considered a hard-working, diligent officer. He had done well with field work, and had been praised for his progress in training exercises. Three months ago, things had seemed to die down in Brahms. He was no longer needed for outside duties, and spent most of his time reclining in his chair behind a desk, playing Solitaire or pushing papers. When the call had come in for someone to investigate the silence of Silent Hill (he dwelled momentarily on that irony), he had been the only one present in the station to take the assignment. He had almost literally leapt at it._

_Now that the night air was whipping against him and his motorcycle was getting the most use it had in weeks, Bishop felt alive and free again. He had a purpose. Maybe if he found something really dire, and could handle the situation, he'd never have to sit behind a desk again._

_As he came around the other side of the curve, a roadblock greeted him. **Blast it,** he mentally sighed, slowing his motorcycle. The road was completely gone in the middle, creating a huge gap between him and the path to Silent Hill. Bishop slid over to the shoulder of the road and ditched his bike, starting on foot to the abyss. Maybe he could get around it, somehow._

_He crouched at the edge, looking down into the deep, swirling mists. Something rumbled and flashed below, like a storm caught in the depths of the chasm. He frowned and leaned over to get a better look. **What is that...?**_

_****Needless to say, Bishop was very surprised with a winged, goat-headed demon leapt out of the darkness and pulled him down into Hell._

  


__"Bishop?" Arelia inquired quietly. The officer was gripping the sides of his head and trembling fiercely. She was afraid he was going to crush his own head. After a long pause, Bishop looked up and lowered his hands.

"I hit a roadblock," he said evenly. "The road just... ended. I got off my motorcycle to have a look, and something pulled me down."

"When you woke up, where were you?"

"I was walking down Bachman Road. That's why I thought everything was all right. I was just walking, you know? And looking around a little. Then suddenly everything came back to me, like I had just come off autopilot, and all these feelings rushed through my mind. I was curious about why no one was here, and nervous. Then I found you outside the Cafe." Bishop looked at his Solitaire game and placed the three of spades onto the two of spades already positioned on its ace. "You were unconscious, but you seemed to be okay. You were the first person I saw."

Arelia leaned back on the couch and exhaled a long, weary sigh. She put her arms behind her head and glanced out the window to her left. Snow drifted lazily onto the ground, where it promptly disappeared moments later. The serenity was interrupted by logic. It should not have been snowing. There should be people. A dog limped across the yard. _There should be live people,_ she corrected.

"You were killed when you were dragged down into Hell," she said, refusing to look into Bishop's eyes as she told him. "Whatever dragged you here had to kill you first. That's why I'm here. Something stepped in front of my car while I was busy looking at your motorcycle dumped on the shoulder. I swerved like an idiot to avoid it and crashed." She began to search her pockets again. "I don't know if that was what killed me, or what happened next. I remember waking up and getting some necessities out of my truck, then starting an investigation of my own. I was looking for help when a swinging gate caught my attention.

"I went after whatever had disrupted the otherwise peaceful, but ominous, atmosphere of the town. I followed it all the way down an alley. As I proceeded, it became darker and darker, until I had to turn on my pocket flashlight. It was drizzling slightly, but it was not puddles I was splashing about in. It was blood.

"I came across rusted, metal grates and chain link fences. Everything was soaked in blood and... gore. There was a gurney, covered with a sheet. Someone was under it. There were bloodstains where the eye sockets should have been.

"I hit a dead end, and found a body crucified to one of the fences. That's when the things that were in the school attacked and stabbed me to death. Next thing I remember is waking up to you watching me." She looked over to Bishop, who was staring at her with a very calm look on his face. Slowly, he reached over and took her hand.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Arelia said, face contorting into a look of anger. "You think I'm crazy."

"No," he said, squeezing her hand. "Actually, it makes a lot of sense." 


	18. Our Guilt

The K. Gordon house was quiet. Nothing disturbed the occupants inside. The air conditioner hummed almost inaudibly. The lights remained dim enough not to irritate the two sleeping forms sprawled out on different couches. It was the first moment of real calm they had experienced since coming to Silent Hill.

  


Arelia breathed deeply and easily in sleep, a contrast to Bishop's more shallow, but softer breaths. Their minds overflowed with subconscious dream imagery, and within their confines, their guilt manifested. Outside, things began to change.

  


_Arelia set her duffle bag down on the stoop, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. The house she had known all her life stood before her, alien and foreboding the way it should not have been. She removed her Marine cover from the top of her head and tucked it into her belt. Her uniform, newly pressed, smelled of fabric softener and cigarettes. She took off her shades, and knocked on the oak door._

  


_A few moments passed before an old woman came to answer. She drew back the curtain to look Arelia over, then disappeared again into the cover of the house. Many locks on the door snapped and clicked before allowing it to open, revealing the atrium, bright and polished._

  


_"Mom," Arelia said with a nod and a forced smile. Mrs. Mitchel stared at her daughter with harsh brown eyes that scanned every inch of her without moving._

  


_"Leave the bag out there," she said stiffly. "I don't imagine you'll be here that long." Without missing a beat, Arelia opened the screen door shielding her from her mother and stepped into the house, her shoes making dull taps on the tile._

  


_"Dad, you don't understand," she said across the table. "Joining the Marines was my career choice. It has nothing to do with my ethical values, or the way I've been brought up. It allowed me a free college education. I have a master's degree in psychology." The gruff, unshaven man to whom she spoke never allowed his cold blue eyes a moment of softness for his daughter. He held his coffee mug tightly and shook his head._

  


_"I don't care what fancy diploma you got, or what you been doin' for the past couple years. Ain't none of us got that, and we done turned out fine." He surveyed the room idly. "You should've been here helpin' your mother an' me. That's all there is to it."_

  


_Arelia gritted her teeth. "I don't have that obligation to you anymore," she hissed. "I've got a life of my own. It does not involve your caretaking, something which you two seem to be doing well enough on your own without." She stopped and looked around. "Where's Yura? I want to see her."_

  


_"Never you mind where Yura is," Mr. Mitchel said. "We're talkin' about your mistakes right now."_

  


_"My mistakes?! You were the ones who made the mistake!" Arelia was on her feet, her chair sprawled on its back. "Where is Yura?"_

  


_"She's out workin' for us, like you should be."_

  


_"You didn't," she whispered, eyes narrowed. "Tell me you didn't, because if you did, I swear to God I'll kill you both right here and now." Mrs. Mitchel picked up the chair._

  


_"You shut the fuck up, girl, or I'll take the belt to your goddamn filthy mouth," Mr. Mitchel growled as he stood. "Your cunt ain't worth shit to us now, so if you don't like how we handle family affairs, you can get the Hell out of here." He lifted up his mug. "And don't let the damn door hit your good-for-nothin'-ass on the way out."_

  


_Arelia kicked the chair over again to spite her mother's efforts and hurried to the door, face tinged red with anger. "You'll both get what's coming to you," she promised. "Yura's too damn good for you." She picked up her duffel bag and slammed the door behind her, flying down the front garden steps to her truck. She ran over the mailbox on her way out._

  


_The road was dark and slick with rain. Arelia, her Marine jacket having been thrown in the back, drove through gigantic puddles and became airborne over speedbumps in her short-sleeved undershirt, uniform pants and shoes. Her angry tears slid unnoticed down her cheeks, the bloodshot whites of her eyes hidden behind shades. Perhaps she was moving too fast, but it was no issue to her. _

_She had to find Yura before she suffered the same fate she had years ago._

  


_In her headlights, the pale pink of a tricycle was illuminated. The light reflected back and blinded her momentarily. She hit the brakes and skidded headlong into the bike._

  


_A sharp, piercing scream cut the night air. Then all was blue and red, blue and red, blue and red..._

  


Her pain not yet fully realized, Arelia twisted and writhed slightly on the couch. It was as if she were being intentionally held on the brink of full remembering, but not allowed to cross over. She whimpered softly; the noise did not awake Bishop on the opposite couch. His own dreams were plagued by his own personal demons. He frowned in sleep and tensed as sirens cut through the air.

  


_"Get back! Come on, now, get back!" he yelled at the hysterical woman trying to overpower him. Flares ignited like the eyes of demons in the night. Police and ambulance lights flashed. The woman began to push him back._

  


_"Ma'am, come on, now!" He put his hand on her chest and tried to force her back toward the cruisers; she grabbed his wrist and twisted it hard, moving him out of her way. He grabbed her leg and pulled her down to him. The two wrestled with each other; he called for help even as she pinned him by his throat._

  


_Under the woman's left front tire, a tricycle lay crushed and mangled. Tassels gleamed in her headlights. One wheel still spun._

_Bishop finally managed to kick her off him and drag her into the concentration of police officers and paramedics. He watched the latter of the two rush past toward the concealed accident site. As he helped load the woman into the ambulance, she leaned forward and whispered into his ear._

  


_"Samael is coming. They've brought on the Change, and I... I...!"_

  


_Bishop turned to look into her eyes. Two emerald orbs filled with pain and terror. Two eyes producing blood at the corners._

  


_"It's all their guilt!" she cried, still resisting assistance. The chief paramedic glanced down at Bishop, who stood trembling, touching the ear she had brushed her lips so softly against._

  


_"She's delusional," he said evenly. "I'm sorry she put you through so much trouble. They get like this after traumatic experiences, sometimes."_

  


_"You'll take her to Alchemilla?"_

  


_"Of course," the paramedic smiled. "Dr. Kaufmann's the best for stuff like this."_

  


_On the curb, Bishop watched silently as the ambulance closed its doors and took off wailing down the main road. To his left, he heard the quiet conversation of the remaining medics._

  


_"Time of death?"_

  


_"9:18 PM."_

  


The two mangled protagonists slept through the hours this way, trapped within their own internal conflicts previous repressed. Inside them beat two fierce hearts that fluttered, died, and were reborn each moment. The moment they stopped would be the moment the entire world came crashing down, and the theory of mortality would be broken forever.


	19. Dahlia

"Good morning," Bishop said, hovering over the newly-awakening form of Arelia.

The ex-Marine's eyes slowly came into focus, moving over the features of his face until they became alert and aware. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, yawning.

"What time is it?" she asked softly. Bishop stroked her hair gently.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Time never matters here." He let his hand drift to her cheek. "You're all right, aren't you? Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine," she lied. "You?"

"Fine," he lied back. "I think there's someplace we should visit. I checked your map; there's a church in town."

"Well," Arelia began, "that'd be interesting if it were still standing."

"Indeed. Anyway, we should probably get going. Are you particularly hungry?"

"No."

"All right, then." Bishop helped her stand. "Off to the church, it is."

The two headed down Bradbury. In between Levin St. and Bachman was another alley that led all the way up to Bloch. Several times Arelia had to consult the map, and Bishop constantly listened for white noise on her radio. On the intersection, they turned right, and came to the steps of the Balkan Church.

The stone stairway leading to the wood double-doors was cracked with some great force. Some of the evidence of shattering extended to the road under Arelia and Bishop's feet. The church itself was huge and reminded Arelia of the gothic Catholic structures that were scattered along Hannibal, the town she had grown up in. Slowly, she ascended the steps and pulled open the left door by its iron ring. Bishop squeezed the trigger guard of his shotgun and followed, closing the door behind them.

Arelia passed the empty pews only partially intact. Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the polished marble floor, free of blood, but not free of the same shattering that had occurred on the steps outside. The walls, too, were cracked and showed signs of the application of brute force.

"Whatever happened to this town could have very well started out in the church, by the looks of it," she murmured quietly to Bishop. He grabbed her by her shoulder suddenly, staying her progression toward a figure she had not seen earlier. It was standing with its back to her, dressed in what seemed to be the attire of an eccentric mourner or gypsy. Slowly it turned, revealing an even more absurd face adorned with layers of dark makeup. It was an old woman.

"I've been expecting you," she told them, twitching slightly. "It was foretold by Gyromancy."

Arelia did not take her eyes off the woman. She drew her weapon and held it level with her chest. "I've heard of Gyromancy," she said. "It's an ancient divination ritual used to create prophecies. A person would walk in a circle marked with letters, eventually becoming dizzy and stumbling at different points. Thus it was thought to spell out an event to come."

"But what does that have to do with us?" Bishop asked.

"Apparently, she's been using it."

"I knew you'd come," the strange woman muttered, almost to herself. "You want the girl, right?" 

"The girl?" Arelia said, confused. "Who are you talking about?" The woman made a broad gesture that encompassed everything around her.

"I see everything!" she declared, cackling in such a manner that it reminded Bishop of rabbits being choked to death in a plastic bag.

"All right, I'm just about sick of you," he said. He raised his shotgun to her head and stepped forward.

"Stay back!" the woman warned, putting her hands in front of her. There was such a wild and disoriented look in her eyes that Arelia was led to believe she might be the sole survivor who had seen everything happen within the town.

"Hold it," she said quietly, putting a hand on Bishop's bicep. It was rigid under her grasp. "She's probably taken sanctuary here to escape the demons. Maybe she can tell us something." Bishop glanced at Arelia, then slowly relaxed his muscles and lowered the shotgun.

"All right," he said. "Talk." The woman hesitated a moment, then seemed to grow sure of herself again.

"Nothing is to be gained from floundering about at random. You must follow the path. That path of the hermit, concealed by Flauros." At both Arelia and Bishop's confused looks, she turned behind her to the altar and withdrew a pyramid-shaped object broken off into strangely designed sections. 

"Here," she said, holding it up. "The Flauros, a cage of peace. It can break through the walls of darkness and counteract the wrath of the underworld." The object gleamed in the light as if it were an instrument of God. "These will help you," she concluded, placing the Flauros back onto the altar beside another object. Just as Arelia thought the woman may have a lucid moment, her eyes grew wide and began to jump around frantically. 

"Make haste to the hospital, before it's too late!" she cried, and suddenly moved for the door leading into the back of the church.

"Hey!" Bishop growled. "Come back here!" He ran after her, but by the time he reached the door, she had slammed and locked it. He pulled hard on the knob and pounded on the wood.

"It's of no use," Arelia sighed, placing her gun inside her jacket and searching her pockets. The police officer kicked the door once more before stepping up to the altar.

"Let's see what the senile old bat left us," he murmured. Arelia glared at him disapprovingly as he ran his fingertips over the Flauros and a silver key tagged as "drawbridge".

"Where'd you put my smokes?" she demanded angrily. Bishop sheepishly smiled.

"They kinda went through the wash with your clothes," he admitted. Arelia's eyes suddenly became as large as the old woman's had. "I'm, uh, sorry... But maybe this is a good time to break your habit, you know?"

Arelia just stared at him.


	20. Central Silent Hill

"Come on, Arelia, please talk to me."

They were walking down toward the bridge leading to Central Silent Hill. Arelia had been reserved and scowling for the duration of the trip, her only real movements to walk around Bishop's futile attempts to stop her. It had been an hour since they left the church, and Bishop could almost see the flickering of withdrawal beginning to pulse in her pupils.

_Nicotine, nicotine, nicotine, nicotine..._

"Arelia, please... I'm sorry, come on!" She remained silent. Bishop lowered his head. "I didn't mean to, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

_Nicotine, nicotine, nicotine, nicotine..._

"Look," he said, trying to sound firm. "You know I didn't intentionally put your cigarettes in the wash. I'm sorry, but it wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind." He stopped in front of her and she stood before him, staring up at his stern face. "I've sincerely apologized many times over the course of the hour, and I've accepted the beating you gave me for the comment about dropping the habit, but I think it's time for you to either forgive me or walk away now." He waited for her response, features still cold and authoritative, blue eyes staring down into her bloodshot whites.

"Well?" he prompted. "What's it going to be, Arelia? Because no matter how tough you are, I know you don't want to wander around here alone." Again, Bishop waited. Again, he received a blank stare.

"Well?"

_Nicotine, nicotine, nicotine, nicotine..._

She side-stepped and walked past him.

"_Arelia!_"

In the middle of the bridge, off to the right, there was a control tower. Arelia climbed the steps easily with Bishop close behind. Before he could get to the door, she slammed it and clipped his nose. After muttering several nasty things concerning her mother, none of which were absolutely false, he opened the door and stood behind her as she inserted the key into a control panel. She turned the key; the machinery began to run. There was a switch next to the keyhole, which she flipped. The drawbridge lowered.

Bishop looked around the control tower and found a map of Central Silent Hill on an empty chair. On the desk in front of it, he found a medicine bottle. He pocketed the bottle and tapped Arelia's shoulder with the map.

"Here," he said quietly. She turned to take it, and when she did, he caught her hand within his. "C'mon, babe," he whispered. "I'm sorry." He squeezed her hand very, very gently. "Can you forgive me?" Arelia squeezed his hand in return, sighed, and nodded. Bishop smiled and hugged her tightly. "Thanks."

"Nicotine, nicotine, nicotine, nicotine," Arelia murmured, breaking away and heading downstairs. Bishop watched a moment, confused, then followed before he lost her in the ever-thickening mist.

It was a long walk over the bridge to Central Silent Hill. The shopping district of the small town was as foggy as any other part, and posed a larger threat: neither of them knew their way around. It would be easier to get lost, even with a map. And who knew what dangers lay within this new area?

Arelia looked down at the map as they passed the police station on the left. She was tempted to enter, as was Bishop. He tapped the map vigorously, pointing at the building with his other hand.

"We could find help there, maybe, and some proper weapons!" he said, as if convincing Arelia would be a great chore. Arelia moved the map out of his reach and took him gently by the arm, pulling him onto the sidewalk across from the station. Wordlessly, she pointed at a shadowy corner bordering an alley. Bishop followed her line of direction, but could make out nothing. Still she held her arm perpendicular to her body, straight ahead of her, ever-pointing to the alley. Bishop squinted, and still he could see no point of particular interest. But Arelia did not change position. He kept looking.

Finally, when he thought she may have failed to mention a catatonic condition, something in the darkness that the building overcast onto the asphalt moved.

Bishop glanced at Arelia, who remained positioned like a rigid weathervane. Her eyes were wide and staring, but no fear glinted in their irises. She did not blink. She just waited. He looked again, but the movement was gone now. After a few moments, Bishop let his focus slip and his vision blur. The thing moved again. His vision sharpened. Arelia's radio began to murmur.

It was a gorilla, or a bear, or some sickly combination of the two. The monstrous creature loped across the sidewalk opposite Bishop and Arelia, its long arms hitting the ground before its back-paws. It used them to swing its lower body forward, much like a gorilla would, and yet it had not the familiarity or body composition of a primate. Covered thoroughly in brown fur mottled with black and light reds, the thing resembled a grizzly, save for the head, which was disturbingly human. The face was obscured with thick black hairs, so that no features were visible. Around the head, the black faded to brown. There were no ears that Bishop could see from where he was standing. The beast looked around a bit before swing-trotting over to the other side of the station, like a savagely mangled and contorted guard. When it disappeared from view, Arelia lowered her arm.

"New place, new enemies," Bishop muttered, half unhappily, half nervously. Through his peripheral vision, he could see Arelia's short nod. "We'll check back later, maybe?"

"The old woman told us to go to the hospital before it was 'too late'," she said quietly. "I'm not entirely sure what that is in reference to, but I'm also not entirely sure I want to find out." She breathed in, a long and painful inhalation. "Things could get much worse. Much, much worse." 

Bishop did not say anything. He watched Arelia's eyes finally blink. "In my nightmares I have seen this place. Throughout my restless dreams..." The phrase, as it trailed off, burrowed its way into the back of Bishop's mind, nestling there, waiting to be called upon again when the time came. "Throughout my restless dreams, I have run, cold and alone, through unnamed territories, demons nipping at my heels with venomous and malignant intent. I could have lived a thousand lives, fought a thousand wars, died a thousand terrible, torturous deaths... And it still would not have been this bad." She shook her head and looked around. "My nightmares were _never_ this real."

Taking Arelia by the arm, Bishop began to walk with her down the street toward Alchemilla Hospital. "This isn't real," he said softly. "This can't be the true reality. This has got to be the distorted version of our Purgatory, right? Earth turned momentarily into Hell?" Under her jacket, Arelia's skin felt like dry ice, a burning and freezing frigidity. The cold leaked through the material as she shook her head again.

"This is where our guilt lives. This is where our true animosities are manifested. It is a man-made world; not in the sense that we built it with our hands, but that we built it with our selves. It is of our minds and spirits. These are the dark things that we all harbor: the irrational jealousies, the secrets, the lies, the hate, the forbidden love, the lust, the pain, the desire, the greed, the wrath, the rage, the savagery, the bestiality, the forgotten instinctive properties that have since dwelled only in the back of our brains. Biding their time." She slipped out of Bishop's grasp. He was both relieved and disappointed. "We're in their time now."

"God will save us." Even as he said it, Bishop looked disturbed. Arelia snorted.

"God is not here."

"God is everywhere."

"Hell is the absence of God."

"If this were Hell, why would we be thrust into it together?" Bishop demanded. "Why would two people who can at least tolerate each other be put in this place if not for the mercy of God? He has at least given us that comfort. Why would we both be here, if this were truly Hell?"

"To make it hurt more when we're torn apart," Arelia answered without missing a beat.

From the look on Bishop's face, it was evident that he had not been expecting an answer.


	21. Kaufmann

Alchemilla Hospital was not a particularly unpleasant-looking establishment. In fact, if the circumstances had been different, Bishop thought he would have rather liked it.

The gargantuan brick building, framed about the perimeter by a chain-link fence, stretched into the troubled sky and disappeared into the clouds. He scanned its structure, noting the solidity, exits and entrances. Then he pushed on the gate.

It creaked open, like a long-forgotten echo of a corpse's last breath, and four shots were fired. Bishop stepped over the bleeding bodies of two dogs lying at his feet, courtesy of Arelia and her handgun. She slopped through their excesses of blood up to the door and opened it, leaving it ajar for Bishop to follow.

"Don't close..." It was too late. He had closed the door behind him before she even got the words out of her mouth. She sighed and shook her head at him, then inspected the lobby of the hospital. It was clean; the counters and linoleum floors sparkled with the scent and polish of PineSol. Well-lit, as well. But as all hospitals do, it had the smell that made Arelia want to bolt and never look back. She could never quite put her finger on it, but it reeked of something uncomfortable and of such disgusting nature that it could only be contained in a place of sterility. On the walls were various posters encouraging health: a food pyramid, a want-ad for blood donations, and a woman giving herself a mammogram. Arelia rolled her eyes before turning to Bishop.

"Looks safe here," she said. She sniffed, then started down the hall past the receptionist's desk. "Smells like lemons and--"

Gunshots. Two of them, in quick succession. Arelia glanced at Bishop, who drew his shotgun, then hurried into the room from which they had sounded. She opened the door without thinking to draw her weapon, and stared at the somber man sitting a few feet away on a wooden chair, a gun in his hands and a dead flying-monster at his feet. Just as she was about to back out of the doorway, he pulled his gun up at her head and lunged forward, closing the space between them.

"Woah!" Bishop yelled from behind Arelia, rushing in and pushing her out of the way. "Easy, easy! We're okay! Just put the gun down, we're not monsters!" There was a long moment of silence in which he was studied thoroughly by the man with the gun. Dark eyes traveled over his body, then shifted to Arelia. She stared back at him. Slowly, the gun was lowered.

"Thank God," he murmured. "Another human being." His eyes lifted to Bishop as he stuffed his gun into his inside jacket pocket. "I'm Dr. Michael Kaufmann, I work at this hospital." Arelia stepped forward, moving nearer to the police officer.

"I'm Arelia, and this is my friend Bishop," she greeted with a lack of warmth congruent to Kaufmann's. "What's going on here?"

"I really can't say... I was taking nap in the staff room, and when I woke up, it was like this." He nodded toward the beast on the floor, drowning in the pool of blood bubbling out of its mouth, and also gestured to the building's abandonment. "Everyone seems to have disappeared. And it's snowing out, this time of year. Something's gone seriously wrong."

"We gathered that much," Bishop said. "Still, it's nice to see a survivor."

"Did you see those monsters?" Kaufmann questioned, running his hand through dark brown hair. "Have you ever seen such aberrations? Even ever heard of such things? You and I both know creatures like that don't exist." As Arelia and Bishop shared a look of worry, the doctor spoke up again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you."

"You didn't," assured Arelia. "It's just that--"

"Well, I'd better be going," interrupted Kaufmann. He started for the door, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Bishop was standing in his way.

"Hang on a second," he growled, moving his arms to further block the exit. "You can't just go out there and leave us alone. We've got questions, and I've got a feeling you've got answers." Without interrupting his professional gait, Dr. Kaufmann pistol-whipped Bishop so hard he slammed into Arelia and out of the way. Arelia caught him before he fell and held him back from the powerful and violent older man.

"I can't just sit around here and do nothing," said the doctor with a shrug, as if it were all justifiable by that single movement of his shoulders. He opened the door and strutted out, slamming it shut behind him. A plaque fell off the wall with the force.

"I could have kept him here, you know," Bishop snarled as he pushed away from Arelia and rubbed his smarting jaw. "Maybe we could have gotten him to take us away from here."

"Unlikely," she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "I'm not quite certain he was all there. His mental stability looked a bit iffy to me."

"To me, as well," he reluctantly agreed. "But I still don't like the fact that you let him walk after he hit me like that."

"Well, I'm sure he's making his way through the lobby right now, so if you hurry, maybe you can catch him."

"Funny. Real amusing."

"You're the one who decided to be the mediator and get between him and the door," Arelia reminded him. "Besides, we've got more important things to worry about."

"Like?"

"Like getting a map for this place," she said. "And then getting out." She stepped through a door to the left of the one she had come in through, and passed through a relatively empty room. The next door led her to the receptionist's desk, where she found a health kit on the counter.

"Well, you've got one problem solved," Bishop said, handing Arelia a map of the hospital that had been hanging on a corkboard. She looked through its floor plans half-heartedly before putting it inside her jacket.

"One down, a million to go," she murmured.


	22. Phantoms

"Okay, how about this one? _Nowonmai! Nowonmaaaiiiiii!_"

Bishop and Arelia were carefully going through each of the hospital's rooms, searching for anything they could get their hands on. While they looked around, Bishop had started up a game of "Guess The Movie/Song/Book". Arelia entered one of the rooms through the door in the area they had met Kaufmann in.

"The Exorcist," she said. "And it's in both the book _and_ the movie."

She moved through the room slowly, handgun drawn and fully loaded with fifteen rounds. It was dark; there was no identifiable light source she could turn on. Her pocket flashlight illuminated only a small portion of the hall she seemed to be in, and she had to turn her body to bring anything else into the light. On her right and left were shelves that seemed to have been filled with brochures at one point. A few of the pamphlets were still in their labeled slots, however, there was nothing of interest that Arelia could make out. Further into the room was a desk littered with documents and a singular broken lamp. As she approached, she could see a newspaper lying on the surface of the desk.

"Okay, Arelia. Your turn." Bishop looked over her shoulder as she picked the newspaper up and opened it. There was a gaping hole in one of the pages where an article should have been. "Hey, that's weird," he said with a frown.

"Yeah," Arelia agreed. "I wonder what was so important that it had to be cut out?"

"Maybe it had to do with something of Kaufmann's," her partner speculated quietly. "I wouldn't be surprised if it did."

"Me neither," she agreed again, setting the newspaper down. "What's this one? _Timothy Flyte: The Ancient Enemy_."

"That's an easy one. Phantoms by Dean Koontz, right?"

"Good. You've been keeping up with your literature."

They exited the room with the flyers and found themselves in another hallway. There were six room doors and two others that led to stairwells. The first door, straight ahead of them, was the Storage Room. Arelia stepped forward and tried the handle. It twisted halfway before locking.

"The door is jammed," she said unhappily. "We're not going to be able to go through that one."

"What about the one next to it?" Bishop asked. He turned the knob, and the same thing happened. Arelia glanced at the map of the first floor again.

"Try the Doctor's Office," she suggested. "It leads into a Conference Room that may hold something of interest."

The door was unlocked, and the room within was relatively normal. There were four chairs in sets of two's, each set opposite a small coffee table. Beyond that were two desks connected to a row of cupboards lining the wall at floor-level. There was a desk lamp, but it could not be turned on.

On the coffee table, Bishop picked up another map, this time of the hospital basement. He folded it neatly and put it into the back pocket of his pants. "Found a map," he relayed to Arelia. The ex-Marine turned to glance at him as she searched through the cupboards. "I'm keeping it in case we get separated." There was a slight pause in her rifling, then she nodded.

"Okay. Let's hope neither of us gets lost, though. I wouldn't want to be alone in a hospital."

"You don't like hospitals?"

"I, uh..." Arelia trailed off into silence, staring intently at the floor. Her lips trembled as if on the verge of forming words, then pressed into a thin line. Bishop watched her carefully. Finally, she turned back to the cupboards. "Well, who _does_ like hospitals, right?"

"Spend a lot of time in them or something?" he pressed, opening the Conference Room door. He stepped inside and looked around, leaving the door ajar behind him. On a long, mahogany table was a key glinting in the dim light. Its tag read, "BASEMENT KEY". He put it into his pocket and started back toward the door. "Arelia?"

The Doctor's Office was empty.


	23. I'm In Love With You

"Oh, no," Bishop murmured, running over to where he had last seen her. "Arelia?!" Nothing that could have contributed to her disappearance lay in the cupboard. He turned to the swinging door leading out into the hallway. "ARELIA!"

  


His shoes hit the tile floor hard as he ran out into the hall, looking left, then right down its expanse. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind: where could she have gone? Had someone taken her? Was something holding her prisoner? Had she gotten up and left? Was she in danger? Was she already dead...?

  


He ran into the Director's Office and tripped over books scattered onto the floor. The cupboards level with his eyes were open, and their doors were hanging by a single hinge each. Contents were ripped and torn and tossed about like a whirlwind of inconceivable force had raged through the room. Behind a desk, he found a large smatter of blood. 

Blood in liquid form. Fresh blood...

Blood with glass in it.

  


Leaving the Director's Office and still calling out Arelia's name, Bishop tried to open the Storage Room again. Nothing. He punched it in fury, adrenaline spiking and dulling the pain in his bleeding and bruised fist. Further down was the Kitchen, and its door was unlocked. He charged inside, breathing hard, and slammed into the steel refrigerator. Something moved to his right, and he drew his shotgun, firing two shots in quick succession before he even turned to look.

  


_BA-BLAM! BLAM!_

  


Both slugs ricocheted off the stainless steel sinks and pipes of the kitchen, and he got a quick glimpse of a figure duck out of the path of fire and behind the large stoves. Putting all rational thought aside, Bishop moved blindly to follow the thing, passing through rows of culinary equipment. His eyes narrowed as they scanned the area ahead of him, and then behind him. Nothing. Not even a sound--

  


_Cha-chlick._

  


Cold against his temple. He rolled his eyes to the left, and out of his peripheral vision, he could view the black of a gun. _Kaufmann,_ he 

thought unhappily, and blinked to focus more clearly on what was holding the weapon. There was no way to bring up his shotgun before the good doctor pulled the trigger.

  


"Now, would you like to explain why you fired on me? Because I really thought _you_ lectured _me_ on looking at the target first before pulling the damn trigger, jackass..."

  


Another blink. Definitely not Kaufmann's voice...

  


"A... Arelia?"

  


"Damn straight, Chappy. Drop your weapon before I kick it from you."

  


The shotgun dropped. The barrel was pressed more forcefully against Bishop's head, and he heard Arelia hop down from the sink she had been sitting on. She moved it harder, and he moved with it and out of her way.

  


"Turn to me. Slowly."

  


Bishop turned, the muzzle now at his forehead. Arelia's green eyes burned with agitation, but she was completely sane. _So much for rescuing **her**,_ he thought sourly.

  


"Next time you so much point that shotgun at me," she said evenly, brushing a few strands of hair out of his eyes with the gun, "I'll paint the walls with your limited gray matter." She put her handgun back into her jacket and nodded to the weapon on the floor. "Alright. You can pick it up now."

  


The police officer crouched and retrieved his weapon, scowling fiercely. "Y'know, maybe you shouldn't run off so quick like that. I got worried about you. How come you didn't answer when I called out your name back there?"

  


"Didn't hear you," Arelia said with a shrug. "Guess I got caught up in looking for materials. Sorry." She waited for him to stand, then looked up at him. "You were really worried about me?"

  


"Um, yeah? Like I haven't been worried about you before?"

  


"Never so much as to fire a gun at something you didn't even see." She took his wrist. "Your pulse is going wild, too. Nice adrenaline trip you just went on." 

  


"I found blood in the Director's Office," Bishop said softly, pulling his hand away from Arelia. "I... thought it was yours."

  


"Nah, all blood present and accounted for here. Which is more than I can say for you," she added. He looked at his hand and winced at the brutal sight of his knuckles. "That's going to take more than a bottle of medicine."

  


Bishop put his hand down on the surface of the sink as Arelia used one of the first-aid kits she had found in the school to disinfect and bandage the series of wounds across his skin. He growled a little at the sting of the disinfectant, but had no other complaints. When she was finished, he flexed his hand and moved his fingers about, testing his range of movement within the bandages. It was adequate.

  


"You know, you never did answer my question," he said as they moved into the Director's Office. "About hospitals." Arelia glanced at the cupboards and floor, shaking her head at the mess before stepping over it and behind the desk. Using a plastic bottle from the kitchen, she kneeled and ushered the red liquid into the container.

  


"It's not blood," she said, again avoiding the question. "It doesn't have that acrid scent." She touched the substance and felt it between her thumb and forefinger. "Nor the consistency," she added tonelessly.

  


"That's disgusting," he said. "Wash your hands before you touch me again. And why won't you answer the blasted question?"

  


"Maybe it's none of your business?" Arelia snapped shortly. Bishop blinked with surprise.

  


"I..." His voice trailed off, and then he lowered his eyes. "Sorry..."

  


"Don't be sorry, be useful." Arelia pushed the bottle of unknown fluid into Bishop's arms, took the basement key from his jacket, and walked out the door. A few moments later, the door to the basement slammed shut, and several shots were fired. Bishop continued to look at the floor, head lowered. So, he wasn't getting through to her...

  


Down in the basement, Arelia kicked away the three bodies of giant cockroaches she had eradicated and glanced down at her map. Morgue, Boiler Room, Generator... The Boiler Room and Morgue doors were locked, leaving only the Generator. _Great,_ she groaned internally. _Another freakin' metal behemoth to operate._

  


Indeed, the generator was a great, lurking beast. It towered above Arelia as if she were a mere ant in comparison. The great height was partially caused by its intimidating position: a huge machine in the confined space of a dark, silent, eerie room. It was off. She turned it on.

  


Back up the stairs to Bishop, who was waiting near the elevator. There was a broken vending machine to his left. He was eating a granola bar.

  


"The elevators are working now, I think," Arelia said. "I turned on the generator downstairs. Everything should be functional."

  


"Yeah. I hope so," he murmured.

  


The elevator did not take long to arrive after Arelia pushed the "up" button. Its progression from ground floor was almost immediate. She and Bishop entered warily, and he seemed to tense as the doors closed. They looked at one another before she pushed the button to the second floor.

  


Cables creaked and gears groaned. Then the elevator began to move upward.

  


"They're too clean, too sterile, and hold too much suffering that goes uncared for," she said after a moment without looking at Bishop. He smiled gently and closed his eyes, enjoying the singular sentence that washed away all the terror of Silent Hill and let him know that, in this nightmare, there was at least one solace.


	24. Breakdown Number Two

The double doors in the second floor lobby refused to open, no matter how hard Arelia and Bishop tugged. It was not a matter of them being locked; the doors would give way slightly before slamming shut again. Jammed. The third time Arelia pulled on one of the handles, something pulled back. With a sigh of agitation, she retreated to the elevator and held the doors for Bishop until he followed.

The situation was much the same on the third floor. Even after shooting the locks, neither could force open the doors blocking their path. Arelia sat down on the floor, back against one of the immovable obstacles. She folded her legs beneath her and made more room for Bishop to sit at her side.

"So, what now?" he asked, slumping against the wall. She looked over at him, studying the weary look on his face. His facial hair was becoming thicker; his five o' clock shadow had become an eclipse. Slowly, she set her handgun down on her lap and leaned her head back.

"I don't know," Arelia admitted. Something behind her eyes was pinched together, and she blinked several times to push away the effect. The pinch became a squeeze, until stars danced along the corners of her vision. _Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red..._

__"Maybe we could talk a little bit? I, uh... think it might benefit us to know a little more about each other before we continue on." She could feel Bishop's eyes on her, but she had no strength to turn and glare at him.

"How so?" she snarled. The lights were so bright...

"Well... I mean, you said this place was, like, manifestations of our guilt, right? Kind of like a psychological Hell?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with--"

"You don't like hospitals. And suddenly, we're trapped inside one. This whole world is a nightmare, I'll give you that, but you react so violently to it. It's like you're visiting a place you've been before and had to run away from. So I'm wondering what we're facing and why." Bishop turned a little to get a better look at her profile, made nearly a silhouette by the degree of darkness. "I think you can tell me that much."

The blue and red flashes were so strong. Arelia shut her eyes and let the pain wash over her like the gentle, but enveloping surge of an ocean swell. Foam licked at the corners of her lips. Her brainstem trembled. _Well, maybe it's time..._

__"I was driving to retrieve my... sister... Yura." She licked the froth away from her mouth, each word tempting an increase in agony. "The road that night was very slippery... very dark... I had my headlights on, but they just didn't seem to cut through the blackness of it all. I had to get to her before my parents made her what I had been..."

"A Marine?" Bishop interrupted. Arelia paused, then shook her head.

"I was so worried about her... I wasn't paying an awful lot of attention to what I was doing... how fast I was really going. By the time I saw the tricycle and slammed on the brakes... Well, even 12 weeks of basic training in the Marine Corps and perfect reaction time couldn't get my truck stopped." The color began to slowly drain from Bishop's face as he watched her confess to him an event he had all but forgotten. "I hit the little girl head on. I can still remember the small... jolt under my tires as she was dragged beneath them. That sharp scream in the second she had before the air was ripped from her lungs." She allowed a moment of silence, disturbed only by her repetitive, heavy breathing before she continued. "That scream seemed to echo on and on in the night...

"I don't remember calling the police. I don't think I could have. Maybe someone saw from the side of the road... But they came anyway. I don't remember much about that, either, except the lights... The flashing lights..." Suddenly, her voice rose to an inconceivable scream. "THE BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND RED, BLUE AND..."

As the horrible, piercing sound reverberated throughout the hospital, Bishop felt his heart pound, then fibrillate. Her pitch rose with the frequency of the repetition, those three words building up into a frenzied cacophony until they were indistinguishable from each other. The air became thick, and nearly unable to breathe. His chest burned with effort as his lungs spasmed, aching for oxygen. The moment they shuddered and became still was the moment Arelia finally stopped, and the air thinned, and Bishop doubled over, gasping, coughing, watching the floor spin in a clockwise direction.

"Then they took me here, to Alchemilla," she continued, as if nothing had happened. After a few painful dry-heaves, Bishop's world stopped the wicked merry-go-round effect and settled. He looked up at Arelia. Her tone had changed. She was no longer breathing hard. She was laughing. "They took me here, and they sent me to Kaufmann, that dumb bastard." Her head turned sharply to face him, her mind lost somewhere in the frightening throb of her green irises. "Do you know how long I was in the psych ward, Bishop? At first, they thought I had the Stigmata. My eyes were bleeding. I would get blood all over me, all over my bed, all over my restraints. It burned like a bitch," she snarled, animal-like. "It burned like Hellfire.

"After the bleeding stopped, Dr. Kaufmann thought it was schizophrenia due to childhood trauma. I _had_ worked as a whore from age 10 until I was enlisted. Men in the neighborhood _adored_ small, pure, child-like virgins." Her head suddenly wrenched away from him again, casting all but the dim glow of her eyes in shadow. Bishop watched her hands as they contorted into monstrous claws, the muscles and tendons so tense in the hideous transformation that her entire forearm shook with the strain. A dry, brittle laugh escaped her exposed throat, arched from the backward tilt of her head. Like the grinding of bones. "They loved them... My family was paid well the first time around. The customer even added a little extra because I had bled and screamed and cried while he held me down and broke the thin layer of skin keeping him outside of me." Another laugh, harsher and more violent. So much so that she gagged with the force. "Broke through it, and everything else."

"And that's what you tried to save Yura from?" Bishop asked quietly. Arelia nodded, then lowered her head. Some of her hair, torn from the hold of the ponytail, fell into her face and further obscured her. "When was she born?"

"Eight months and twenty-two days after the first condom broke on the job," she answered, now devoid of emotion. Her hands had relaxed at her sides, the fearsome claws lulled to simple fists. The police officer jumped in surprise, back thudding against the wall.

"She... she was your daughter?!"

"Oh, my family made me call her a sister. I wasn't allowed out of the house after I started showing the physical evidence of pregnancy. I was fifteen at the time. She's lucky, you know that? She came out beautiful, and lovely, and intelligent despite the way my father beat me when he found out."

"Did you ever find out who you hit that night?"

"Yes." There was nothing more. Bishop did not want to press. He waited for her to respond further on her own. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then suddenly the claws were back, and she scratched her own face, howling like a rabid coyote. "I hit Yura! I hit my daughter! I crushed her little skull under the tires of my truck and spilled her gorgeous brains out all over the pavement!" The way she tore at her flesh became more violent, and Bishop tried to pull her hands away. Arelia struck him in the face with her elbow and bared her teeth as she looked up at him, revealing a face that was red with fingernail marks and eyes that were producing blood at the corners...

"And you were there!" she barked. The gun clattered onto the floor as she moved to all fours, backing Bishop against the wall. "You kept me from her! You threw me into the BLUE and the RED and the PSYCH WARD!" Before she could strike him again, Bishop grabbed both her hands by the wrist and threw her to the side, giving him room to stand and move away. She recovered quickly and stood as well, discarding her jacket and moving her fists up into fighting position, one up by her ear, the other in front of her lower face. He watched her silently.

"Do you know how long they kept me there, Bishop?!" Arelia moved closer, feet in the constant motion of a boxer's shuffle, slightly crouched. He looked at her knees. They were loose. He wouldn't be able to disable her at the kneecaps. "Do you know what they did to me there?!" She swung at him when she was close enough, and he ducked under the right hook, grabbing for her waist to restrain her. Her body spun out of the grasp and backed up again.

_That's it,_ Bishop thought, keeping his eyes on her. _Keep coming after me and backing up. Eventually, you'll get to the wall._ He caught her ankle as she kicked high at his sternum, then twisted sharply. Her balance was immediately wrecked; she fell backward and recovered, backing away again as Bishop moved forward. He let her come again. "Do you know what it's like to hear their screams at night?! To hear them wailing in pain, suffering, dying inside?!" Her fists lowered, and her maneuvers stopped. The rage was gone, as was the unfeeling indifference that had once haunted her. Now came the flood of real emotion: the despair and heartache she had suffered from ever since that dark, wet, fatal night. "Then the orderlies patrolling the halls open up one of the doors and start screaming at them, you know? Because they can't stand it anymore. And when the patients can't stop their crying or their howling, they get beaten into silence or unconsciousness with the riot batons the doctors let their staff carry around." She looked at Bishop's own baton momentarily. 

"We couldn't stand to hear them screaming, either... and seeing the way it was dealt with made us that much more disturbed... that much more willing to resort to violence to shut each other up." Arelia fixed her hair absently as she went on, the words seeming to fall out of her mouth. "Like I didn't have enough to worry about... I'd killed my own daughter trying to save her... And you know, I think I was too late, anyway... I asked Kaufmann about it one day, and I guess he thought I was feeling up to hearing the whole story, because he told me that she had been riding back from a friend's house to see me. She was supposed to have been spending the night there, but... she'd heard I was back, apparently, and wanted to surprise me... In a way, she kind of did. That tricycle? It had been mine. My father bought it for me after the first time I had brought back some extra income for him.

"How was I supposed to live with that? I couldn't. I repressed it. I was released, eventually, after the legal issues had been dealt with. Then I went back to the Marine Corps, only to find out I'd been discharged. Honorably. So I gathered up my pay and took some time off to really recover. To really get used to not remembering. It took months. I eventually got an apartment and a job as a child psychiatrist. I'd received my degree in psychology while the Marines put me through school. It was difficult working with children, and in that profession. I'd get flashbacks of the hospital every so often. Sometimes hear whispers of one of the old rumors that circulated through the patients that could actually fall into lucid moments. They said the doctors kept a girl down in the hospital basement, a special case. Burn victim. She should've been dead, but somehow she'd survived. They kept it hush-hush because it had to do with the occult or something...

"Anyway... it finally started to get to me again... So I found a week of free time for myself and decided to visit a nice little resort town not far from the city. Silent Hill. Silent-_freaking_-Hill." She laughed. Genuine, but somewhat off. "And then the shit _really_ hit the fan."

Bishop watched Arelia for a few moments more. She had her hands on her hips, head lowered slightly, a pensive expression on her face. Then he spoke: "She never knew?"

"No," she said softly. "I guess maybe she does now." He moved toward her to comfort her, but she stepped around him and picked up her gun, then her jacket. She tied the latter around her waist. "We'd better get moving. I don't want to be in here any longer than I have to." He moved for her again, then stopped. _Let her deal,_ his mind urged. _Just let her go and deal the way she needs to. _

"Alright," Bishop said with a soft smile. He held the elevator doors open for her and looked again at the list of buttons. He blinked, then looked again. Then rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and looked a third time. Then he looked away and then back.

"Um," he said, catching Arelia's attention. He pointed to the button marked with a "4" on the row of floor options. "That wasn't there before, was it?"


End file.
